Ebola

The high mortality rate is actually "good" in terms of preventing the spread of the epidemic. Dead people don't spread diseases (at least not for long).

Originally posted by DeepThought
Rabies is not very infectious, it requires a bite, and there is a vaccine which is effective - provided it is administered before symptoms develop. In the case of anthrax there are three types of infection: pulmonary, gastro-intestinal and cutaneous. The last case of anthrax in the UK was a drum maker inhaling spores on the surface of an imported anima ...[text shortened]... /7705328.stm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles

Think about how a virus spreads. The more contagious, the more hosts the virus spreads to and this is the measure of the success of the virus in my mind. The more hosts the greater the chance of a significant mutation.

Rabies causes mammals to attack and bite more. This is the secret to that virus' success. Ebola causes the host to discharge a lot of bodily fluids. That is the secret to that virus' success. I would not be surprised to find out that the more widespread strains of ebola cause the host to discharge more bodily fluid than the strains that are less widespread. Virus' evolve.

Because measels does not cause people to hemorrhage bodily fluids like ebola my guess is that ebola is more contagious than measels. Ebola may simply be more contained because people have an incentive to contain deadly diseases that are horrible and scary.

It has been suggested that ebola is already airborne because of how the contagious nature of ebola has been underestimated. It could simply be explained by blatant incompetence though and that seems likely based on recent events.

I am very shocked at how many mistakes have been made here in the USA since Ebola has emerged as a problem in Africa. It is almost as if the virus' contagious ability is being tested by observers and being even helped along. The first nurse to be infected here is Asian. With a large population in China I could see a biological weapons expert wanting to test more than one race for ebola fatality rates. I'm not saying ebola is a genetic engineering experiment being tested on Black people first like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, but I am not ruling it out either. Powerful white people can sometimes be racists that look at black people as if they are nothing more than animals. Using them as guinea pigs is not something new. Using any race as guinea pigs is nothing new.

Originally posted by humy

People with Ebola do not become infectious until they are showing symptoms.

Might that might change if it mutates to become airborne?
But then I assume it would require coughing or sneezing to readily get airborne which, of course, is a symptom.

Anyone:

I am not sure if a virus necessarily requires coughing or sneezing or a speci ...[text shortened]... ughing or sneezing or any other symptom and, if so, what is the mechanism that gets it airborne?

On a technical point, when they say airborne they mean independent of droplets. So sneezing, coughing etc. are necessary for aerosol transmission, but not for airborne transmission. Again we need a disease transmission expert to answer this question. Looking at Wikipedia, or even a high quality source, won't really help us as it's just too easy to misapply what is being said.

I think that airborne transmission doesn't require coughing and sneezing. With aerosol transmission the bug is confined to its water droplet, which means that normal breathing won't generate transmission.

I've got to emphasise, there are a total of zero documented cases of a virus becoming airborne. The risk is greater the longer the outbreak lasts, but is still highly unlikely.

For a person to be infectious the bug has to be present in bodily fluids which seems only to happen if they are showing symptoms. Infected individuals seem not to be infectious until onset of symptoms. So I doubt that that would change if it were fully airborne. It would probably require a separate mutation. Lassa fever has a related disease agent and is asymptomatic in 80% of cases, the Wikipedia article doesn't say, but I have the impression they are still infectious. Again, we need an expert to comment on this.

Originally posted by DeepThought
On a technical point, when they say airborne they mean independent of droplets. So sneezing, coughing etc. are necessary for aerosol transmission, but not for airborne transmission. Again we need a disease transmission expert to answer this question. Looking at Wikipedia, or even a high quality source, won't really help us as it's just too easy ...[text shortened]... t I have the impression they are still infectious. Again, we need an expert to comment on this.

With aerosol transmission the bug is confined to its water droplet, which means that normal breathing won't generate transmission.

In that case, the worse possible nightmare scenario that I imagined cannot possibly happen.
The very worst that could happen is that it undergoes an unlikely mutation to spread mainly through becoming airborne via coughing and/or sneezing but, although this would make it a lot harder to contain, infectious people would show obvious symptoms thus it should still be relatively easy to identify those who are infected and quarantine them before they spread it to other people. In other words, even in the unlikely event of it becoming highly airborne, it probably still be contained so that the vast majority of us will still not get it. This I find reassuring.

Diseases spread because either the sufferers ignore the symptoms and do not seek treatment or quarantine (the flu) or because the disease is infectious prior to serious symptoms (AIDS). As Ebola stands now, it is only infectious once the symptoms become visible, and in first world countries most people would seek treatment.
However, I just discovered on Wikipedia, the survivors of Ebola can remain infectious for up to two month afterwards, so that might be an issue.

We must remember however that Ebola is not a disease that evolved in humans. It has not evolved specifically to transmit itself in humans. That may change (as HIV did) and it may become native to humans, but the fast onset of symptoms and high mortality suggests that it would not be as successful at HIV.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

"I doubt that Ebola is a US biological weapons experiment."

It does seem unlikely to be useful to the military. It could have been created for the purpose of population reduction though.

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/boom-top-ebola-scientist-joked-about.html

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_depopu12.htm

Originally posted by Metal Brain
"I doubt that Ebola is a US biological weapons experiment."

It does seem unlikely to be useful to the military. It could have been created for the purpose of population reduction though.

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/boom-top-ebola-scientist-joked-about.html

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_depopu12.htm

Filovirus wouldn't make a good biological weapon, it is too fragile out of the body. It is fairly easy to kill, heating it to 60 celcius will kill it as will relatively mild chemical agents, household disinfectant will probably do, all of which, I imagine, would hinder weaponization. Also they'd have had a job producing it in 1976, before the advent of genetic tinkering technologies. The phylogenetic tree linking it to other viruses which you can look at on the Ebola virus page on Wikipedia shows it's relationship to other viruses such as Marburg. It has a known natural reservoir in bats. Besides, all they had to do to keep population down in Liberia and Sierra Leone was not stop the civil war there. I really don't think that this kind of conspiracy theory is even remotely plausible.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Filovirus wouldn't make a good biological weapon, it is too fragile out of the body. It is fairly easy to kill, heating it to 60 celcius will kill it as will relatively mild chemical agents, household disinfectant will probably do, all of which, I imagine, would hinder weaponization. Also they'd have had a job producing it in 1976, before the advent of ...[text shortened]... war there. I really don't think that this kind of conspiracy theory is even remotely plausible.

This doesn't mean ebola could not be used as a weapon. If someone can be persuaded into becoming a suicide bomber, then it's not so crazy to believe someone could be persuaded into intentionally infecting themselves and coming into the U.S. through our weakened Southern border. This will only be a crazy conspiracy theory if it never happens... but I'm not so sure it couldn't happen.

Up until now Ebola has been largely confined to low population areas. But the greatest fear here in the U.S. is if it manages to show up and take hold in large population areas, where people necessarily live in close proximity to one another. If this happens it could become a very big problem and nearly impossible to control. And the U.S. is not the only country with dense population areas, so it's not just a potential problem for the U.S.

Originally posted by lemon lime
..... and coming into the U.S. through our weakened Southern border.

Are you really that ignorant about US immigration? The vast majority of people entering the US do so perfectly legally and do so via the many other border controls. The only reason people sneak across the Southern boarder is because they are poor, do not have the necessary paperwork and that is where they are currently.
A suicide bomber is typically reasonably well financed, has legal papers allowing him into the US, and is not South American.
And there would be no need to infect himself at all.

I watched a little documentary on Ebola and the theory is it comes from eating of infected bush meat ....which is bats and monkeys mainly which is a delicacy in W.Africa .....I do think it's being used as a political weapon here in the states and some people are freaked out but I think I would be more afraid of getting the Flu then Ebola. Don't get me wrong it should be taken seriously but education would help and the media here does not help

Manny

Originally posted by twhitehead
Are you really that ignorant about US immigration? The vast majority of people entering the US do so perfectly legally and do so via the many other border controls. The only reason people sneak across the Southern boarder is because they are poor, do not have the necessary paperwork and that is where they are currently.
A suicide bomber is typically reas ...[text shortened]... im into the US, and is not South American.
And there would be no need to infect himself at all.

But are you really sure terrorists infecting themselves with ebola (for some reason), then flying to Mexico (for some reason) and then crossing the border illegally (for some reason) is something that couldn't happen?

Originally posted by DeepThought
Filovirus wouldn't make a good biological weapon, it is too fragile out of the body. It is fairly easy to kill, heating it to 60 celcius will kill it as will relatively mild chemical agents, household disinfectant will probably do, all of which, I imagine, would hinder weaponization. Also they'd have had a job producing it in 1976, before the advent of ...[text shortened]... war there. I really don't think that this kind of conspiracy theory is even remotely plausible.

"Filovirus wouldn't make a good biological weapon"

I'm not saying it makes a good biological weapon, but it does have the potential to overwhelm hospitals which is enough to be used as a contributing factor against an enemy. Russia and China sent people to Africa because of ebola. I'm sure they claim it is for humanitarian reasons, but you know the real reason was to get a sample for study. If a country wanted to make a biological weapon via genetic engineering ebola would be the logical place to start.

Genetic tinkering of ebola might be taking place. Just because they have not created a good weapon from it does not mean they are not trying. Would it surprise you to find out they were trying to make it into an airborne virus? Eventually any testing needs to be done with people, right?

Here is an excerpt from the CDC website:

Four species of Ebola virus have
been identified: Ivory Coast, Sudan, Zaire, and
Reston. Ebola-Reston is the only known filovirus that
does not cause severe disease in humans; however,
it can be fatal in monkeys.

Testing the different strains on monkeys is not good enough. Humans always have to be used as guinea pigs eventually.

http://fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/bw/

There are 4 different species of ebola. They may have all naturally evolved to become those 4, or 1 or more could have been genetically engineered. I don't pretend to know one way or the other. I am just open minded enough to consider all possibilities. You should be too.

I am curious, do you reject the possibility that a GM virus was tested in Africa? Can you admit that people are that evil and not just in Imperial Japan but the USA?

Originally posted by Metal Brain
"Filovirus wouldn't make a good biological weapon"

I'm not saying it makes a good biological weapon, but it does have the potential to overwhelm hospitals which is enough to be used as a contributing factor against an enemy. Russia and China sent people to Africa because of ebola. I'm sure they claim it is for humanitarian reasons, but you know the re ...[text shortened]... d in Africa? Can you admit that people are that evil and not just in Imperial Japan but the USA?

Being "open-minded" also entails the ability to distinguish the possible from the plausible.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
"Filovirus wouldn't make a good biological weapon"

I'm not saying it makes a good biological weapon, but it does have the potential to overwhelm hospitals which is enough to be used as a contributing factor against an enemy. Russia and China sent people to Africa because of ebola. I'm sure they claim it is for humanitarian reasons, but you know the re ...[text shortened]... d in Africa? Can you admit that people are that evil and not just in Imperial Japan but the USA?

For pities sake. To be a usable biological weapon it needs to be more or less spherical, the particle size needs to be in the right range, larger and its not airborne, smaller and it just gets breathed out again. At that size the particles pick up electrostatic charge and tend to clump, so part of weaponization is defending against that aspect. Filoviruses are delicate and will not survive weaponization. Filoviruses are the wrong shape. If anyone were to try using a biological weapon they'd go for Anthrax, it's ideal.

The Russians already had samples of Ebola, a Russian scientist died in 2004 after spiking herself in a laboratory accident. Their reason for sending help was to avoid the bug reaching their borders.

Testing of biological weapons does not need to be done on people, an animal model is sufficient to show the agent is still capable of causing disease after weaponization. They already know how to do it. In the same way that they do not need to test nuclear weapons any more.

This is not the result of weapons testing. It is the result of the West failing to respond quickly enough to a natural disease which is in a reservoir of bats. I know that this will come as a shock to you, but nature is still more powerful than us. Sometimes bad things happen without malice on anyone's part. I know you find it comforting to think that all the problems of the world are due to evil, but they are not - nature takes some of us early from time to time.