Ebola back on the agenda!

[Workingman]

This time in the UK.

58 'close' contacts of nurse Pauline Cafferkey who are thought to have been in contact with her bodily fluids have been identified and are being monitored for the virus. Some 25 of them have been given the experimental vaccine used in the outbreak in Africa.

But having been in contact with the nurse's bodily fluids shouldn't the contactees be isolated for the known 21 day incubation period?

I sincerely hope that those in charge of this know what they are doing.

[Suff]

I did a bit of digging here. Apparently in those who have "recovered" as opposed to those vaccinated and non infected, there appears to be a reservoir of the disease which can stay in certain parts of the body. For both sexes the eyes and in men semen too.

They have never had an outbreak this large or this number of survivors. They are learning more and more about the disease as they go.

The advice is good. Ebola is passed by direct contact with body fluids. Not any other way. So no need to panic so long as everyone who might be a potential carrier is identified and monitored. Also the vaccination is a good way to go. When this whole thing kicked off that was not even an option. The outbreak has, at least, given us about 6 decades of research in a year and allowed the first non harmful and, possibly, effective vaccine ever for a variant of haemorrhagic fever.

I don't think we need worry about an outbreak, everyone is well aware of the potential future issue and precautions are being taken. Otherwise this would not have been picked up so quickly.

[Workingman]

I did not say we need to fear an outbreak, but I am asking how much risk is there in 'no risk to the general public'?

The reports were very measured. 58 'close' contacts. Of those, 40 had been in contact with 'bodily fluids' - whatever that means. 25 of the 40 were vaccinated, but 15 declined the vaccination.

Nowhere, not anywhere, has any experience of this type of secondary exposure. That being the case I would have expected a lockdown until such time as enough data on this new scenario had been gathered to make an informed decision.

Monitoring, vaccination and temperature tests are all good ideas, I just hope that they prove to be enough.

[Suff]

Blood and saliva are key if I remember correctly. All blood taken now will also have to be marked hazardous...

We had this before when they came home infected and didn't know. Yet even during the height of the outbreak there were no secondaries in the UK.

So long as the monitoring is sensible it should not be an issue. The biggest problem with Ebola has always been that infection has jumped the boundaries before being identified. There does not seem to be an indication of the boundaries being breached...

Of course it's an infectious tropical disease, so there are no certainties. But the health service have shown they know how to deal with it.

[Workingman]

We had this before when they came home infected and didn't know.

It is not the same.

We were very lucky when she came back in that in the incubation period nobody else was infected. That most probably was down to her and the way she handled things. All credit to her.

Since then she has, potentially, become infective again, but this time she has transferred bodily fluids, though we do not know which types.

We are entering the unknown and, to me, we need to do more than was done before.

[Workingman]

The poor woman is now 'critically ill'.

According to a virologist from Reading University the team treating her are in "completely uncharted territory".

I sure hope she pulls through. She did a brave and noble thing in trying to help.

[Suff]

I hope so too. I hope that this is not a case of a new mutated virus which is immune to all the work which has gone before.....

Both for her sakes and for those in Africa. Because is this is what is happening, then they're in for a second round....

[Workingman]

It has to be a concern.

Of the almost 30,000 cases some 12,000 died. That leaves about 18,000 in the same position as Ms Cafferkey. Many of those will now be outside the undefined time limit of 'Ebola can survive for months', but many won't.

My take is that this is not over yet.

Mutation has to be the greatest fear. If that does happen we are back to minus square one. Look out for Ebola Mk2.

[Suff]

Yep here is the distinctly concerning thought.

After every previous Ebola outbreak, doctors have gone into the jungle and blown up thousands of monkeys and other target groups who can be infected, in order to try and find the host. With 0% success.

What if the host for each outbreak was actually a new immune survivor, carrying the virus around in their eyes??

I assume they are now going to have to re-process every survivor and try and find out if they are really and truly virus free or not. At least with the sheer size of the outbreak and the number of people who are in cities, the search and testing is going to be a lot easier.

[pederito1]

Looks as though Pauline may not make it, so sad but very foolhardy and perhaps irresponsible to go there at all like the other "Do Gooders" who risk bringing it out I am sure they have plenty of people who can administer drugs, vaccine and perhaps advice which could have been dropped top them. I think any outbreak should
be rigidly contained in the area involved to avoid it spreading, wonder too how effective the vaccine is, I have not heard much of it lately and if it works in anyone whose system is already compromised by HIV as I am sure many are in that region. Perhaps the thread virus does hide somewhere in the body and can come out later like herpes simplex when resistance lowers.