How does 2014’s disastrous outbreak of Ebola compare with past epidemics? First discovered 38 years ago, the first epidemic occurred in South Sudan when 284 people were infected with 151 dying. The second major outbreak didn’t occur until the mid-1990s when 250 people died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Further outbreaks happened in 2000, 2003 and 2007, killing hundreds. However, all previous epidemics pale in comparison with 2014. The death toll in West Africa is approaching 5,000 with Liberia experiencing the highest number of deaths – 2,458. Sierra Leone comes second with 1,183 while 843 people have died in Guinea. Nigeria has experienced 8 deaths but has largely contained the virus. After six weeks with no new cases, it is set to be declared Ebola free by the World Health Organization.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Yet they herald Nigeria’s success even though it isn’t/hasn’t been, the problem. Winning.
That chart may be mostly irrelevant.
This is NOT your grandfather’s ebola. It may be a totally new strain, so comparisons are futile.
—————————————————
“A group of 30 doctors and scientists have published their findings on the website of the New England Journal of Medicine that the ebola ravaging West Africa is a new strain of the disease and was not imported from Central Africa.
The doctors and scientists’ conclusion is consistent with Dr. Cyril Broderick’s report in the update below that the strain originated in US government biowarfare labs and was injected into humans in Department of Defense field trials that began just weeks prior to the ebola breakout. ”
———–
“The US Department of Defense (DoD) is funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus. Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March.”
Stuck,
Interesting…
People refer to “Ebola” as just one virus. I admit that I did as well. Turns out there’s a whole FAMBLY of this crud called “Filovirus Haemorrhagic Fever”.
At the moment, there’s 6 different types of FHF’s… Marburg, plus 5 strains of Ebola. If what you posted is true, then that would make 6 different strains of Ebola…
Here. Table 1, page 10.
http://www.slamviweb.org/es/ebola/FHFfinal.pdf
Interestingly, this is NOT the first time Ebola has reached the United States. Ebola Reston poked it’s filthy head up back in 1989. Some folks got infected, but didn’t show symptoms… probably why we didn’t hear about it…
Nigeria’s success in containing it is due to hard work: Tracking 894 direct & tangential contacts of Patrick Sawyer and making 18,500 follow-up calls and visits to those people. If it were to break out in the States, no one would want to work that hard. They’d just create a smartphone app for tracking the people you’d infected. Or maybe a Twitter campaign: #StopEbola
Start off let’s put things in perspective. Look at that map and those numbers. Understand, all the numbers for previous outbreaks are the totals from start to finish. Now look at the numbers for 2014. Understand, those numbers only represent the numbers to date. We can even ignore the possibility they may well be under-reported. There are no signs this thing is anywhere under control so those numbers will only go higher.
There is no conjecture anymore; it can be stated as fact. What we are dealing with cannot be considered the same as previous outbreaks. Remember we don’t have the total yet and clearly this is orders of magnitude more deadly than previous outbreaks.
What makes this outbreak different? Clearly the CDC doesn’t know because they aren’t even aware that this outbreak is any different. Everything they have been saying, everything they have been doing, and their protocols are all based on studies done on the previous outbreaks. They are making the classic mistake that militaries have made throughout history. They are geared up and prepared to fight the previous war. They at least appear to be trying to adjust to the current conditions. They are playing catch-up. Another way of putting it is that Obama and the CDC are at best leading from behind. That approach is only going to get a lot of us killed.
They claim they know exactly how this virus is and isn’t spread that is a complete lie. The more you study the information put out by (nonpolitical) researchers in this field of study. The more you discover there are more unknowns then absolutes.
So face this one clear fact. This thing is not under control, anywhere. And any hope that it will be controlled here in the US is just that HOPE. It may already be too late but the one most important thing we can do, to give us time until there is some form of actual control, is to not let any more cases come into this country.
Stop unrestricted flights from those West African countries where Ebola is raging out of control.
Anyone who takes comfort in Nigeria’s success story, I would ask you to answer one simple question.
Was Nigeria dealing with the same strain of Ebola as the one out of control in Liberia and Sierra Leone?
Consider the fact that the person that started the outbreak in Nigeria SURVIVED. That has to raise the question; could it be he had a different, less virulent strain of Ebola?
Because if you can’t answer that question, you can’t claim Nigeria’s success has any relevance to what is happening in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The strain of Ebola spreading now is Zaire Ebolavirus
Here’s some Ebola Doom for ya’.
This current outbreak of Ebola seems to have virus that is mutating at the SAME RATE AS INFLUENZA. As the virus circulates in increasing numbers of humans, it acquires increasing numbers of mutations.
“The growing number of new Ebola viral lineages will undergo natural selection for some ‘optimum’ balance of virulence, infectivity, tissue tropism, immune suppression, and other parameters which maximize the reproductive fitness of the Ebola virus in humans. ”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-21/ebola-2014-mutating-fast-seasonal-flu
For the Red Necks in the crowd, this means that the LONGER this outbreak lasts, the GREATER the risk of Ebola becoming the perfect killing machine.
Oh Joy.