The largest driver of this outbreak (and many ebola outbreaks) is the fear of healthcare and the way many cultures treat the deceased. These two issues are what would make transmission to NA or Europe very unlikely. Many people in African nations will stay away from hospitals because they believe they will get Ebola from the hospital. Therefore often people that are sick die of Ebola in the community and therefore sp…
In all fairness, in previous outbreaks, rural hospitals WERE methods for spreading Ebola.
Last month, an American doctor who is working with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF) wrote these really harrowing and sad letters home from the heart of the Ebola outbreak:
The largest driver of this outbreak (and many ebola outbreaks) is the fear of healthcare and the way many cultures treat the deceased. These two issues are what would make transmission to NA or Europe very unlikely. Many people in African nations will stay away from hospitals because they believe they will get Ebola from the hospital. Therefore often people that are sick die of Ebola in the community and therefore sp…
Those are all arguments as to why Ebola might not spread within Europe or the U.S. This article is about whether it could spread to those places.
Yea, that's how conversation works. Someone posts an article, then clever people talk about it. Some agree, some give experiences, some add additional facts and resources, and other people offer counter arguments. This is a counter argument to the article. What you posted, besides being blatantly obvious, is simply noise and does not add to the conversation.
Secondly, when people die in many of these cultures, there is much more physical connection with the body, potentially spreading the disease more. You would think this would have been selected against ages ago.
Human culture changes way too fast for evolution to act.
I have no idea why you were down-voted. It's true: even if, somehow, evolution had managed to at some point kill off all cultures with a certain trait, the same trait is likely to develop again in at most a few centuries.
If somebody has solid arguments against emiliobumachar's point, I'd be interested to hear them.
The largest driver of this outbreak (and many ebola outbreaks) is the fear of healthcare and the way many cultures treat the deceased. These two issues are what would make transmission to NA or Europe very unlikely. Many people in African nations will stay away from hospitals because they believe they will get Ebola from the hospital. Therefore often people that are sick die of Ebola in the community and therefore sp…
A close family member who is an MD in the USA has on more than one occasion said "the hospital is the last place you want to be when you are sick" though more in reference to the higher liklihood of picking up antibiotic-resistant infections than other communicable diseases.
In fairness, unless you have to be there, hospitals are full of sick people. These are, by and large, places to be avoided.
And this is as a epidemiologist working in hospital infection control.
The burn rate is too fast for Ebola plus Ebola isn't transmitted via air(yet) so even if it did contaminate America or Europe it could be contained rather easily.
The notion that "the burn rate" is too fast is both on epidemiologically shaky ground, and something I'd be disinclined to rely on given "the burn rate is too fast" was supposed to be why we hadn't seen Ebola in places now experiencing outbreaks.
Human culture changes way too fast for evolution to act.
I have no idea why you were down-voted. It's true: even if, somehow, evolution had managed to at some point kill off all cultures with a certain trait, the same trait is likely to develop again in at most a few centuries. If somebody has solid arguments against emiliobumachar's point, I'd be interested to hear them.
Maybe the downvote was because it isn't completely true. Nothing can be too fast, or too slow for evolution.
It's only that culture evolves by different means than genotipes, and by those means fitting the norm more than compensates any unfitness caused by health problems. At least at the short term.
Those are all arguments as to why Ebola might not spread within Europe or the U.S. This article is about whether it could spread to those places.
Yea, that's how conversation works. Someone posts an article, then clever people talk about it. Some agree, some give experiences, some add additional facts and resources, and other people offer counter arguments. This is a counter argument to the article. What you posted, besides being blatantly obvious, is simply noise and does not add to the conversation.
I'm amazed you managed to misread a comment that was only two sentences long. The title of the article is--in case you missed that, too--"Could The Ebola Outbreak Spread To Europe Or The U.S.?" The previous comment did not address that question and instead answered a completely different question.
What doesn't add to the conversation is obnoxious pedantry like your comment.
Last month, an American doctor who is working with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF) wrote these really harrowing and sad letters home from the heart of the Ebola outbreak: http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2014/june/dispatch-from-g...
That was an absolutely terrifying read. What seems to make Ebola worse is the manner in which you die...bleeding out on the floor, alone. Doctors Without Borders is an incredible organization, and one that I gladly donate to yearly.
The largest driver of this outbreak (and many ebola outbreaks) is the fear of healthcare and the way many cultures treat the deceased. These two issues are what would make transmission to NA or Europe very unlikely. Many people in African nations will stay away from hospitals because they believe they will get Ebola from the hospital. Therefore often people that are sick die of Ebola in the community and therefore sp…
Secondly, when people die in many of these cultures, there is much more physical connection with the body, potentially spreading the disease more. You would think this would have been selected against ages ago.
Not necessarily. In the vast majority of cases, being in close contact with a corpse, before it's gotten serious about decomposing, is not a big deal. I would guess the few cases where it is a problem are not enough to exert significant selection pressure.