Ebola

POGS
"Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals."

That is a quote from the World Health Organisation's website.
www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/

It means that in order to infect someone with Ebola, the patient's body fluids have to get inside the other person's body, either through a skin puncture, or swallowing the body fluids. This is the same as HIV infection.

So it is highly unlikely that Patrick Sawyer, tragic though his death is, would have infected his wife or children.

Here's a question.

American Patrick Sawyer died of Ebola in a Lagos Hospital. He worked in Liberia as a top government official in the Liberian Ministry of Finance.

Mr Sawyer was heading home to Minnesota, USA, for his daughter's birthday, he had 3 children aged 5,4 and 1 years old.

He had one stop to make before the flight to the USA in Lagos to attend a conference. He was taken to Lagos hospital and died of Ebola.

What if Mr. Sawyer had not attended the conference but went straight to the USA FROM Liberia ?????. The first thing his children would have done is hug and kiss daddy. I don't think washing their hands would have protected them!!

What about those on the flight they are trying to contact!!! It could have so easily have been passengers who had entered the USA.

I appreciate I am being perhaps oversensitive mentioning bush meat and Mr Sawyer but it has to be spoken of given the Ebola spread is worrying so many charities and those working at ground level trying to contain it's rapid spread.

Terrafirma1

Hollydaze I am gobsmacked that you can dismiss an epidemic which has already killed 700+ people in Africa and to fight which $1billion dollars is being invested as mere"media hype". It may not be in Europe yet , please God we can take appropriate action but read the facts - this is not merely a Third World problem. And even if it were- don't you care?

Your OP stated: is there a real risk of it reaching Europe and the UK? and that is what I responded to. The media hype was regarding the risk to the UK, as you mentioned, so why you are 'gobsmacked' I have no idea.

At the present time, it is not a problem for the world at large and yet you seem to want to make it appear that it is.

It is not my responsibility to worry about the world and his wife, I can do nothing about it; that's what politicians and charities deal with. Shaking one's head in sadness achieves very little I'm afraid - although it does seem to make some people feel better about themselves for some bizarre reason.

When I was browsing their site, I found this under the tab of 'Risk of Exposure'

With the exception of several laboratory contamination cases (one in England and two in Russia), all cases of human illness or death have occurred in Africa; no case has been reported in the United States.

and that is what I had thought might be more the norm; I don't really know much other than what I have read on there Aka.

Doctors and nurses are never 100% protected. They can get needles stuck in them by accident for instance. I know a nurse who had an anxious wait for test results when this happened and the patient had hepatitis.

The handrub is for when you cant get near soap and water!

TF Isopropyl alcohol is used routinely in clinical environments for disinfecting surfaces, so I don't think you need worry.
Hibiscrub is good but consists of chlorhexidine gluconate, and there is increasing concern about allergy.

But the ebola virus, like HIV, will be destroyed by ordinary household detergents, according to what I have read.

Recently told in hospital that alcohol rub is not much better than useless. Hibiscrub was recommended.

If handwashing facilities are unavailable you a can use alcohol hand rub - keep a small one in your handbag/rucksack etc - handy for grandkids who want a snack while you're out and about. It does build up a sticky residue if used too many times so get a good handwash when you can.

Hollydaze I am gobsmacked that you can dismiss an epidemic which has already killed 700+ people in Africa and to fight which $1billion dollars is being invested as mere"media hype". It may not be in Europe yet , please God we can take appropriate action but read the facts - this is not merely a Third World problem. And even if it were- don't you care?

Well call me a bit of a wimp but I would not like to be travelling to certain countries and I do not think it is wise to think just because we have a good hygene standard in this country in comparison to say Nigeria we can be complacent given the nature and spread of the disease alongside the ease of connectivity between countries, including the UK.

The symptoms are similar to flu. Ebola is practically fatal if contracted by humans, with no vaccine or known cure if I am not mistaken.

I know it said that the culture of eating 'bush meat', a known carrier of the Ebola virus and the fact families are culturally required to wash and bury their dead so quickly is perhaps not going to mean much to us. Whilst Ebola is not an airborne transmitted virus, it is contagious if you come close enough to infected bodily fluid. This can be through vomit, sweat, kissing, diarrhoea etc.

I fully appreciate the chance of this happening is 'remote' but if you consider a scenario where an infected passenger on a plane is sweating, uses a tissue and leaves it for somebody to dispose of, that person could unwittingly be exposed. A passenger on a plane has diarrhoea and does not clean the toilet or door handles properly, a child may be the next user of the toilet and does not wash his/her hands correctly, that child could be exposed. Agreed all hypothetical but none the less that is the reality of how easy a virus is transmitted and Ebola is hardly a virus to mess with.

Ebola patients are difficult to diagnose allowing days of possible coughing over others. As for the doctor who died I do not believe for one moment he put himself in a compromising position but it proved to be too deadly a virus and he paid the ultimate price.

I am not thinking there will be an outbreak by the weekend in the UK. I am only saying I think it has to be accepted that there is a distinct possibility we could see the first case here given the spread of the horrible disease and the widely used air traffic into the UK from infected countries.

I guess that poor doctor who died may have been infected through contact with a sick person's bodily fluid (vomit/saliva etc) and he may have had a small cut or scratch. In overcrowded and underfunded hospitals it is hard to maintain complete barrier care.

That link would seem to say it's more infectious than we've been lead to believe Holly

There's also some very good info from the Centre for Disease Control here:

www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html

From WHO

"Ebola spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids"

If you are not able to wash your hands properly, then it would be best not to eat anything, prepare any food or put your fingers in your mouth until you can wash them properly.

Many public toilets - where they are any - sometimes don't have soap, water and/or drying facilities available. Lorry drivers often find it difficult to wash their hands - and although the disease apparently can't be passed via parcels etc I still find it scary that our hygiene standards although higher than some countries are not as high as they could be. I don't think we should be complacent

I am sure this will turn out to be nothing more than media hype again. Remember the bird flu saga? How we were all going to die from it and people cancelled their flights for fear of breathing it in in a confined space - and it isn't even an airborne disease! The media didn't print that bit though - can't imagine why

As has already been said, good hygiene protects us from a lot of things.

My first job as a Staff Nurse was on an Isolation Ward which had a room kept permanently ready for what was known as a VHF - Viral Haemorrhagic Fever such as Lassa, Ebola or Marburg (there are others) Our Charge Nurse lived in an advanced state of hope mixed with panic that we would get such a patient and everyone who arrived with a PUO (pyrexia of unknown origin) would get banged up in this room and not allowed to see relatives and we would nurse them in total suits masks and gloves. This all turned out to be a total farce. I think there have been on only or two cases of anything like this in the UK and they were in London. Units such as the one I describe were disbanded long ago as they were thought unnecessary so anything infectious is just nursed in a side ward with appropriate precautions. Strange days though - what I saw most of was diarrhoea followed by vomit.

Harrigran I would suggest that in a lot of places in Africa many hospitals are very rudimentary.

I do not think our standards of infection control would work if there was no reliable supply of clean and treated hot and cold water at the turn of a tap. enough disposable aprons masks etc.

In a lot of places woman and children spend hours walking to wells or very poor and dirty streams to collect enough water to drink or cook with daily.

Never mind trying to be able to clean a small hospital or clinic well enough to keep the environment completely free from contamination.

If it can be contained by simple hygiene, why has the Doctor died ? he of all people would have been able to protect himself.

There was a guest on local radio this morning who seemed really exasperated at the way the press are dealing with this. As when has already said, this is not airborne, the person on the radio this morning (I didn't catch his name) said it is transferred by contact with blood and other bodily fluids. He also said that it can be contained by simple hygene.

Tegan - do go, it's really worth it.

You know, I've never been to Eyam, despite living near the Peak District for most of my adult life.

The problem for the doctors where there is an outbreak is that it is hard to diagnose in the early stages, so containment can be difficult.
However the good news is that the virus is not airborne and is destroyed by simple detergents, so if you wash your hands you should be fine.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100281820/the-curse-of-ebola/
Despite the scary title, this is a well-balanced article in the Telegraph.