Some calming info about Marburg outbreak and the "90% mortality rate"

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5700864&cKey=1113941116000

Fighting Deadly Marburg Outbreak May Benefit Angola

Current efforts are focused on catching cases and stopping them from spreading, the health experts said. The initial symptoms of Marburg -- headache, malaise and high fever followed by vomiting and diarrhea -- are similar to those of any number of other, common infectious diseases.

Marburg is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, sweat and saliva. Symptoms include high fever, vomiting, diarrhea and internal bleeding.

The 90 percent mortality rate is probably due to poor health care and not some special lethality of the virus itself, doctors say.

"It takes very close contact with a known patients, usually very seriously ill, to become infected with this virus," said Ksiazek. "This is not a disease that is going through the general community in Uige."

more

[wakeme2008]

1. Bleach kills it and the ebola virus.

:)

[NNN0LHI]

2. HIV too n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. A few quick questions for you....

1. How many cases of Marburg do you think were generated from close contact from October 2004 until WHO was notified by the Angolan Government in February 2005?

2. Under the old guidance for Marburg, 25% of those infected die from the disease while 75% survive. With 255 current cases at last count, and NO known survivors, what mortality rate does that represent?

3. Why is the Angolan Government busily involved in "reclassifying" Marburg cases that originally met every single test to be classified as Marburg?

4. Why has the WHO indicated in their latest advisories that Marburg is very far from being under control as the Angolan Government has recently declared?

5. Eyewitness reports from three weeks ago indicated that bodies were lying in the streets of the suburbs of Uige, and that it was highly suspected that many more dead and sick would be found. What can you draw from this statement?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. One more question....

6. How many people have died of unknown causes since October 2004 in Angola and the surrounding countries? How many died exhibiting the same symptoms as those who have died of Marburg?

[NNN0LHI]

7. I will answer all your questions at once

It is all bullshit to scare the ignorant.

Don

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Gee....don't you wish you had some facts to back up your point of view?...

...I certainly didn't see any in your response.

Maybe you should go to Angola and tell them what you think...I'm sure the people of Angola will appreciate your remark.

[NNN0LHI]

9. Listen. If you want to keep scaring yourself with this crap be my guest

Just don't be surprised when people don't buy whatever you are selling.

Don

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. Easy for you to say now when Marburg is thousands of miles away....

...but, I bet you won't find many Angolans buying what you're selling.

[DrGonzoLives]

23. And what are you doing to ease their suffering?

Posting speculation on an internet message board? OOoohhh, what a hero you are.

[enki23]

5. seems likely there are survivors who were never diagnosed also

.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of survivors. n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Got a link discussing any survivors?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. Right. Do you have a link to any story discussing any survivors?....

...If there were any survivors, don't you think there would be a story about that in the media?

[Squeegee]

28. I just read about a case...

... where a child had died of the virus and a team from Doctors Without Borders were there to disinfect the body and prepare it for burial. When they questioned the mother, they found that she had been very sick two weeks earlier with symptoms that sounded very much like the early stages of Marburg. She recovered, but may have spread it to her child. The team there wasn't able to confirm that she had antibodies for the virus because of their workload and remote location.

[sharonking21]

13. Thank you for this

The fear-mongers among us are playing this for all it's worth. First of all, the important number is NOT the X% "mortality rate"--(really a case fatality rate, but no matter). You can have a 100% case fatality rate and still not have a widespread epidemic.

The ones harping on this particular statistic are trying to mislead people. What is REALLY important is the rate of transmission. There is no evidence whatsoever that Marburg is spreading wildly in Angola.

For earlier discussions in which I attempted to explain various facets of the epidemiology of Marburg and Ebola, go to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1377255

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x5661

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. "Fear-mongers among us"? Interesting comment coming from....

...someone that claims to be sticking to the facts. Speaking of facts, what do any of us know about the Marburg outbreak other than what's being reported by a media that's dependent on the information they're being given by WHO and CDC? What kind of information can we expect to see from an Angolan government that either failed to recognize that they had a problem in October 2004, or deliberately hid the facts until it got too big to control? How many people have died of "unknown reasons" since October 2004?

Tell you what, I won't make comments along the lines that I consider posters like yourself to be ostritches with your heads buried in the sand if you can somehow manage to refrain from childish comments like the one mentioned above. How's that...does that sound like a deal?

[sharonking21]

16. The problem is

either you really are fear mongering or you don't know enough about epidemiology to be talking about the subject.

In any case, I dislike overblown accounts for at least two reasons: (1)When people see that such prognostications do not come true, they tend to then discount all prevention efforts based on epidemiology when they could be helped by some of them, and (2) I dislike any 'hyping' that causes unwarranted fear; this is more or less what Bush et al did, but it is just as distasteful coming from someone on our side.

Fear causes people to do things, sometimes bad things like Iraq, that they normally would not do. There is plenty in the world to fear that is based on rational assessments of situations--we do not need to add on extraneous and unwarranted fear.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. And I REALLY dislike condescending posters who act like they....

...have the only answers that count.

I also don't really care what you like or don't like at this point in time.

I also intend to post whatever I want to post on DU, despite the efforts of you and those that think like you.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. By the way, have you found a link that discusses any recent....

...survivors of the recent Marburg outbreak?

[sharonking21]

19. No I have not

But then I wouldn't expect to find any right now.

As you know, first of all, mainly, at present, they are able to count cases by being notified about dead bodies, since the relatives of so many who are ill do not want them to be noticed and sent to isolation wards. That may or may not make the case fatality rates look higher at present than they will eventually be found to be.

Second, the real test of how many actually were infected will come later when they do prevalence studies to look for antibodies to this strain of Marburg in the local population.

Third, I freely admit that this outbreak seems to have higher case fatality rates than in the past, but as I said previously what really matters is not how many of those who are infected die; what is important as to spread is how easily the virus is passed from person to person. There is no evidence whatsoever that this is spreading in a way that would suggest any kind of worldwide problem.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1332019&mesg_id=1344958

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1332019&mesg_id=1345130

Please note that in earlier threads I went out of my way to disabuse those who cited a 25% case fatality rate found at the CDC site and said CDC should update their site.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1377255&mesg_id=1381949&page=

I also went to the trouble to calculate case fatality rates from different outbreaks to demonstrate that this differs from outbreak to outbreak and thus a high case fatality rate in Angola as you and pandemic cited was not at all unbelievable.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1332019&mesg_id=1349544

Further I clearly let people know that this outbreak, as you and pandemic stated, certainly would show a high case fatality rate, if not that it would be 100%.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1377255&mesg_id=1381913

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1377255&mesg_id=1382024

However, you apparently want absolute agreement with your statements and that I cannot provide. Especially since in most of your posts you seem to think that convincing people that no one survives indicates that it is going to spread wildly and we should all be afraid we are going to die.

Further, you intimated previously that this was an airborne virus: that is alarmist and misleading. See my discussion here for the difference between airborne droplet transmission and airborne transmission.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?
az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1377255&mesg_id=1382762

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1377255&mesg_id=1384038

[rfkrfk]

14. when travelling by air, ask to sit in the 'non-Marburg' section...n/t

[World Nomad]

20. Calming?

It´s not calming that there is almost no media information has been coming after it was declared only to include documented Marburg deaths by blood tests in a country with such fragmented and low standard health care facilities and infrastructure. Thousands of Malaria deaths per month are an accepted phenomenon in Angola so I suppose we shouldn't expect much.

[sharonking21]

21. Actually there have been 100s of articles coming out

Here are few today from Google's front news page. Now that people see it is not spreading wildly there has not been as much attention, but it is still engendering many articles and those are from all over the world.

Local 'healers' may be spreading virus

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/24/news/virus.php

U.N.: Marburg Virus Coming Under Control

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-deadly-virus,0,1468766.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

Angola at Critical Stage in Marburg Battle -WHO

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=8272092

[World Nomad]

24. Thanks for the news...I hope the govt is allowing release of accurate info

[Avalux]

22. Infection Control

and supportive care are two factors that must be seriously examined when considering epidemic and mortality rate. Marburg virus can live outside the body for several days and can thus be spread in the hospital setting from one patient to another with contaminated equipment, or even in the home from one family member to another. Proper infection control procedures would greatly reduce the transmission of the virus (along with abstaining from close personal contact).
Proper supportive care of Marburg symptoms impact the mortality rate greatly; in an area with little or no modern medical facilities, the mortality rate will rise.
At first I considered Marburg had mutated to a higher virulence, but I don't think that now.

[sharonking21]

25. Because it seemed to be such a comprehensive and new article

I posted one under Late Breaking News from the NY Times Health Section that came out today.

Mysterious Viruses as Bad as They Get (Marburg-NYT Health Section)
By DENISE GRADY
Published: April 26, 2005

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1422875

[Avalux]

27. Excellent article -

"IV Marburg" - sharing vaccination needles, IV syringes. How unfortunate; hospitals have been transmitting the virus just because they don't know any better. :-(

[sharonking21]

26. Some of you have seen this but others have not

I posted a list of books for the general reader that I had read about various outbreaks and epidemics and other medical topics. I note that there are many people on here who like to read about such things.

My idea was to not only provide a starter resource list for those who were interested, but also to seek suggestions of other books on such topics that you all found to be interesting or instructive. I would welcome your reading suggestions and comments about books already listed that you have read. The thread is under non-fiction books:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=209&topic_id=1562&mesg_id=1562