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The Ebola Wars

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Re: The Ebola Wars

#51

Post by trhway »

dnautics wrote: post #28
trhway wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the notes to decoded pieces itself fascinating : /note="immunosuppressive region; other site" ... /note="transmembrane anchor; transmembrane region"

it's even more fascinating. (biochemist here) I think the immunosuppressive regions is a small protein called sGP which ebola causes the cell to produce a ton of. It's not attached to ebola virions, so in a way it's a DDOS on the immune system, by creating a foreign component that the immune system gets distracted by instead of going after ebola.

following the doc link for

524..2671 /gene="NP" /note="Ebola nucleoprotein; Region: Ebola_NP; pfam05505" /db_xref="CDD:147601"

"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9657001?dopt=Abstract"

"DNA vaccines expressing the envelope glycoprotein (GP) or nucleocapsid protein (NP) genes of Ebola virus were evaluated in adult, immunocompetent mice. The vaccines were delivered into the skin by particle bombardment of DNA-coated gold beads with the Powderject-XR gene gun. Both vaccines elicited antibody responses as measured by ELISA and elicited cytotoxic T cell responses as measured by chromium release assays. From one to four vaccinations with 0.5 microgram of the GP DNA vaccine resulted in a dose-dependent protection from Ebola virus challenge. Maximal protection (78% survival) was achieved after four vaccinations. "

The article is from 1998. Interesting why there is still no vaccine. And this is on the virus structure - GP envelope - with attached antibody from human survivor http://www-als.lbl.gov/index.php/contact/163-structure-of-th...

Re: The Ebola Wars

#52

Post by throwaway5752 »

hga wrote: post #47
throwaway5752 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trying to be difficult, but I don't understand your point. Ebola is a vanishingly unimportant concern as far as infectious diseases go. This current "outbreak" has resulted in 2 transmissions in the US to date. The reason it appears that the system failed is that the system correctly reacted to a low value threat, but it was amplified into a hysteria because of dynamics in media economics and US political cy…

OK, I'll down vote you and explain why: your studied inability or unwillingness to do math, to whit, what a disease like Ebola can do in a 3rd World urban environment (or village/small town ones different than the former locations of outbreaks), specifically double the number of infections approximately every 3 weeks. Right now this Ebola outbreak gives every sign of having the potential to be the most significant pu…

Malaria kills 500K-1M people EVERY DAMN YEAR in subsaharan Africa (http://www.who.int/malaria/media/world_malaria_report_2013/e...).

Re: The Ebola Wars

#53

Post by oska »

> The town [of Kenema] sits in fertile, hilly country, dotted with small villages, ninety miles southwest of the place where the borders of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia converge in a triskelion. This border area was the cradle of the Ebola outbreak.

I was unfamiliar with the word triskelion in this description. So I looked it up on Wikipedia [1]. Turns out it is an ancient motif or symbol consisting of three interlocking legs or spirals.

So then I checked the border area between these three countries and indeed, it is quite well described as a triskelion although the top border is more like 180 degrees than 120. I have uploaded a cropped Google Map to imgur showing the area [2]. The town of Kenema is in the southwest corner. Guinea is the NE section, Sierra Leone is the western part and Liberia is the SE area.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion

[2] http://imgur.com/cOPx4Ty

Re: The Ebola Wars

#54

Post by psychometry »

kazinator wrote: post #50

> A particle of Ebola is made of only six structural proteins, locked together to become an object that resembles a strand of cooked spaghetti. An Ebola particle is only around eighty nanometres wide and a thousand nanometres long. If it were the size of a piece of spaghetti, then a human hair would be about twelve feet in diameter and would resemble the trunk of a giant redwood tree. So, 0.08 microns wide, 1 micron…

What I find most odd about your comment is that without the quoted text, I'd assume you didn't even read the article. How you could read the relevant portions of the text and still conclude that Ebola could become airborne suggests maybe it's not your ears that are preventing comprehension.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#55

Post by monsterix »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #49
suprgeek wrote: post #43

The description of the conditions in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone and the over-whelming odds that the doctors there are facing was heartbreaking to read. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is as much a function of poverty as it is of the Ebola Virus. One of these all of us can fight.

I am profoundly moved by the heroism Dr Khan and his nurses showed and the example they've set for future generations of medical professionals. I hope it's publicized when Dr. Khan's family finishes setting up the foundation in his name http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...

I wonder who were the people that took the decision to not give ZMapp to Dr. Khan. What were their reasons to take the drug away for what seems like treating white patients first while we can come back to Khan later (sorry but there is no better way to put this).

A full enquiry and reportage on that side of story will be helpful I think.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#57

Post by kazinator »

psychometry wrote: post #54
kazinator wrote: post #50

> A particle of Ebola is made of only six structural proteins, locked together to become an object that resembles a strand of cooked spaghetti. An Ebola particle is only around eighty nanometres wide and a thousand nanometres long. If it were the size of a piece of spaghetti, then a human hair would be about twelve feet in diameter and would resemble the trunk of a giant redwood tree. So, 0.08 microns wide, 1 micron…

What I find most odd about your comment is that without the quoted text, I'd assume you didn't even read the article. How you could read the relevant portions of the text and still conclude that Ebola could become airborne suggests maybe it's not your ears that are preventing comprehension.

Hi psychometry; I did read read the text which deals with the airborne question. All it says is that there is "no evidence". Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. "There is no evidence" doesn't mean that there doesn't exist evidence, only that evidence hasn't been found so far.

You cannot reassure people by insinuating that they lack reading comprehension. That droplets containing the ebola virus could go long distances, or even dry up leaving a airborne particles, seems very plausible. I do not see how it can be ruled out on the grounds of a lack of evidence.

Has someone experimented with spray-drying a mist of ebola-infected fluid to show that it does not survive such a drying and carry through the air?

What does lack of evidence mean: how hard have researchers tried to reproduce airborne behavior?

Maybe there is no evidence of this "in the wild" because it hasn't spread widely enough.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#58

Post by hga »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #52
hga wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll down vote you and explain why: your studied inability or unwillingness to do math, to whit, what a disease like Ebola can do in a 3rd World urban environment (or village/small town ones different than the former locations of outbreaks), specifically double the number of infections approximately every 3 weeks. Right now this Ebola outbreak gives every sign of having the potential to be the most significant pu…

Malaria kills 500K-1M people EVERY DAMN YEAR in subsaharan Africa ( http://www.who.int/malaria/media/world_malaria_report_2013/e... ).

The CDC's worst case, last I heard, was 1.4 total million infected with Ebola in January. At the current estimate of 70% lethality, there's your 1M million people 10-16 days after infection.

Then it all doubles in 3 weeks. And another 3 weeks.

Do the math.

If you want to be conservative, dial the starting point back, it won't matter for long. But when I did my own calculations, I found 20,000 cases as of a week or two ago (a fairly conservative guess at the true number) would get you to 1.4 million in January.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#59

Post by Steuard »

monsterix wrote: post #55
throwaway5752 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am profoundly moved by the heroism Dr Khan and his nurses showed and the example they've set for future generations of medical professionals. I hope it's publicized when Dr. Khan's family finishes setting up the foundation in his name http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...

I wonder who were the people that took the decision to not give ZMapp to Dr. Khan. What were their reasons to take the drug away for what seems like treating white patients first while we can come back to Khan later (sorry but there is no better way to put this). A full enquiry and reportage on that side of story will be helpful I think.

One issue that I've seen raised before is that there's a bit of a Catch-22 in public perception in Africa. As you point out, withholding the experimental drug has nasty overtones of "saving the cure for the white folks". But there's also a real risk that if they gave the first experimental treatment to Dr. Khan, the narrative would be "using the black folks as guinea pigs". Both of these concerns are based on actual history, so they're not easily dismissed in the region.

I don't know how you balance that. If the treatment is new enough, you really might not know whether it would help or hurt the patient's odds of survival.

Re: The Ebola Wars

#60

Post by throwaway5752 »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #41
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a small protein called sGP which ebola causes the cell to produce a ton of Is that why people die? Cells make too much of that stuff?

Correct. Victims bodies are tricked into generating large amounts of cells. This causes the hemorrhaging which is the ultimate cause of death. Fun fact: The victim's body continues producing cells for several hours after death. In rare cases this (in conjunction with post-death bloating) causes the cadaver to "explode"

That is false: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease#Pathophysio...
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