Ebola Outbreak Update: Death Toll Tops 2,000

[morningfog]

The death toll of the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has reached 2,097 out of 3,944 known cases, the World Health Organization announced Friday. The current Ebola outbreak is the deadliest and most widespread in history, and officials fear as many as 20,000 people could become infected before it is over.

The death toll includes cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The epidemic has been escalating now for six months and is slowly spreading to other countries. Just this week, Senegal – a major hub for tourists and travelers – reported its first Ebola patient. Doctors in Israel were testing a Nigerian visitor for possible Ebola infection Friday after she was admitted to a hospital with a fever. She was in isolation until health workers can determine if it is Ebola, a spokeswoman for the hospital said. Health officials in the U.S., Spain, Thailand and Britain have also been following potential cases.

Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this week the outbreak was “spiraling out of control.” A separate strain of the virus was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to WHO, and has already killed at least 31 people. However, experts say the outbreak is unrelated to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and neighboring countries. The fatality rate of the disease is about 50 percent.

http://www.ibtimes.com/ebola-outbreak-update-death-toll-tops-2000-1680044

[ZombieHorde]

1. This has been an interesting story.

I wonder how folks in the US would act if it hit a major US city.

[Warpy]

2. Not if, when

The incubation period has lengthened from a couple of days to almost 3 weeks. Infected people show no signs when they get on the plane but are deathly ill when they get off. That means transmission will happen and unless the entire complement of passengers and flight crew are quarantined immediately, something currently not possible, it will spread.

Public health laws have been gutted by corporations terrified of lawsuits and restrictions. Public health funding has been slashed by numbnuts politicians who want to make a budget look good and have no idea what the potential cost is.

I hope they manage to stop this outbreak, even though it shows no sign of slowing down let alone ending. I hope they buy us enough time that public health laws are quietly strengthened by anybody with sense.

This thing can be delayed but with out a vaccine, it won't be denied for long.

[spinbaby]

3. I think it spreads easier than they let on

I keep hearing that ebola isn't airborne and can only be caught by direct contact with bodily fluids but its fast spread suggests that it may well be airborne or that the virus survives longer than expected on surfaces. And in the back of my mind, I wonder if some terrorist group won't get hold of ebola and start spread it around in public places.

[ZombieHorde]

4. How do you predict the US will respond an outbrake? nt

[Warpy]

6. With total panic, of course

since hospitals will be overwhelmed very quickly and people will try to outrun the disease by traveling elsewhere, taking it with them.

[ZombieHorde]

7. Well that would be interesting. nt

[deutsey]

5. We are a sad, stupid species

We have the resources and know-how to contain this and yet we do nothing.

I'm afraid George Carlin may have been right: the world's just going to shake us off one day like a bad case of fleas.