• 🇬🇧󠁿 🇸🇪 🇿🇦 🇮🇪 🇬🇭 🇩🇪 🇪🇺
    European & African
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • EADD Moderators: Shambles

Ebola outbreak - West Africa

Si Dread

Si Dread

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 29, 2002
Messages
3,226
Location
UK
An Air-France jet from Guinea, the country most affected by this outbreak of Hemorrhagic Fever, was a couple of weeks ago quarrantined at Charles de Gaulle airport after unwarranted concerns a passanger may have been infected. Ebola is highly infectious, but despite becoming rapidly deadly, it can start out like a normal cold, flu or a violent stomach upset! It quickly turns into a battle against blood loss & it's contact with blood or other bodily fluids that spreads the infection. Unfortunately, local funerial customs in parts of West Africa call for entire families to be present to "wash" the corpse of loved ones & this means many families are entirely wiped out by the virus. Something like 80% of those who catch Ebola die from it. If Ebola went airborne, that would be it for us!

There is no known cure.

Claims such as this one from Rueters, yesterday, that the outbreak is "under control" should raise alarm bells everywhere! ;)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/15/us-guinea-ebola-idUSBREA3E0YM20140415

http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/europ...-guinea-briefly-quarantined-after-ebola-scare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease
 
Si Ingwe said:
... it lacks maturity...
Click to expand...

I'm young at heart not immature. I'm sure there is a difference. Probably.

Ebola is a scary thing but somewhat self-limiting generally. Is a bit worrisome that it's gotten into cities where it can spread to far larger numbers of people though. It's not a thing I'd ideally want to have in the country. Or indeed to have. I think there's a real problem with these kinda diseases which are primarily associated with Third World countries and hardly ever affect Westerners. Cos we all know it only matters if it affects Westerners. Or at least that is the attitude from Big Pharma. Where's the profit margin in creating a drug that will only sell to a few Third World countries? It's a horrible way of looking at it but I suspect disappointingly close to the truth :\
 
^ sad but true.

The quickest way to deal with a virus is to infect the US president (this is a joke NSA, do not put me on any lists*). The amount of money that would instantly be pumped into finding a cure would get results nice n fast.


*Christmas list excluded
 
The NSA has a Christmas list in which dimension..? I s'pose the DEA has a soul now? Pah, I say! Down with the lot of them!

Yes, Mr. Shambs, it is only the limitations that the Ebola virus has itself that prevents it's uncontrolled spread. It infects & kills quickly, reducing the danger of serious outbreaks in countries with slow physical communications. BUT, is there not the risk that one day, somebody (...a Typhoid Mary of Ebola, "Ebola Mary" if you will) who does not suffer symptoms, might leave West Africa & begin to spread Ebola in a city such as London, or New York, where due to population density, the limitations of the virus itself might be rendered mute, & the infection could go nuts?
 
Arent the initial infections largely caused by contact with contaminated bushmeat? Its not outside the realms of possibility of a western outbreak at some stage. There are relatively large illicit bushmeat sales operations going on in cities with quite large african migrant populations. Think london as an example.
 
I'd say there's a pretty serious risk of some kinda Ebola Emma situation hitting more developed countries - or indeed larger African cities. I can't see anybody being willing to invest in the necessary R&D until it actually happens though sadly. Profit is all. Thinking ahead and avoiding problems before they start is far too close to longterm planning for any Big Pharma company to be considering. It's all about the short-term profit or making new drugs for the low hanging fruit of rich Western nations - I suspect most drug companies would be far more interested in creating the new Viagra than tackling a real problem like Ebola.
 
ponch said:
So there are people infected with Ebola on American soil now. Currently undergoing treatment so it should be contained but still pretty worrying. Why did they fly them back?!
Click to expand...

It does seem bizarrely risky - even if they're really very careful about it which you'd hope they are being. Wasn't so many years back they wouldn't let people into the country if they looked a bit warm (SARS outbreak, various 'flu outbreaks) so why you'd bring Ebola infected people right into the country rather than somewhere just a tad less populous is beyond me.
 
Fairly sure ebola doesn't check folks' bank account before deciding whether or not to infect them. Much as I <3 a good conspiracy, these population control via the medium of uberfatal pathogens ones are just plain silly. It's the same reason nobody with any sense uses biological weapons - and swiftly learnt that chemical weapons are generally more trouble than they're worth. Indiscriminate means indiscriminate. Simply impractical. There are far, far easier and more reliable ways to kill large numbers of any given target group than by deliberately introducing something like ebola to a country.
 
It all went to shit when we allowed patents on chemical formulas. The drug companies got greedy. Now they are producing shit like Viagra, and meanwhile all the other companies, instead of innovating, are trying to produce something that works like Viagra but gets around the patent. And if they did develop a cure for cancer, they could charge whatever the fuck they liked for it, knowing the NHS and private healthcare insurance companies are going to have to pay up.

Without guaranteed royalty payments, they would be forced to do some actual innovating. Which means R+D for R+D's sake. Which means fortunate discoveries. And it's not like we'd forget how to make any of the drugs we already know how to make, so anyone could manufacture the most important ones even if Big Pharma collectively picked up their ball and went home.

Annulling all drug, vaccine and surgical appliance patents would be just one step in something I am calling the "Intellectual Property Bonfire".
 
Shambles said:
Fairly sure ebola doesn't check folks' bank account before deciding whether or not to infect them. Much as I <3 a good conspiracy, these population control via the medium of uberfatal pathogens ones are just plain silly. It's the same reason nobody with any sense uses biological weapons - and swiftly learnt that chemical weapons are generally more trouble than they're worth. Indiscriminate means indiscriminate. Simply impractical. There are far, far easier and more reliable ways to kill large numbers of any given target group than by deliberately introducing something like ebola to a country.
Click to expand...

It was a joke dude, albeit a shit one. They recon all it would take is one infected person to fly to this country and 90% of the population would be dead within 2 weeks. Luckily I have a raging germ paranoia and flush the toilet handle using my foot so I would be ok.
 
BecomingJulie said:
Annulling all drug, vaccine and surgical appliance patents would be just one step in something I am calling the "Intellectual Property Bonfire".
Click to expand...

While I agree with the principal, if there was no way to make mega-bucks from it why would "Big Pharma" even try to cure cancer? Why would they spend money developing an aids cure? What would be the point? We all know that these companies aren't in it to help people, they're in it to make lots of money.
 
5StarSquatHotel said:
It was a joke dude, albeit a shit one. They recon all it would take is one infected person to fly to this country and 90% of the population would be dead within 2 weeks. Luckily I have a raging germ paranoia and flush the toilet handle using my foot so I would be ok.
Click to expand...

Fairy muff. Such comments get tossed about so frequently - and apparently in all seriousness - that the reply still applies to those who really do go in for those kinda fairy tales. I do <3s me tinfoilery but either make it so silly it's brilliant or stay vaguely within the realms of reality fellow tinfoilers, please.

And 90% of the population wouldn't be dead within weeks cos ebola tends to burn itself out rapidly cos it kills too many hosts too quickly for them to have much chance of spreading it too far. That's not to say it wouldn't still be pretty shit to have an outbreak here or anywhere else. From what I've gathered basic hygiene actually does do a lot to prevent infection so always wash your hands and stay away from the bush meat and you'll probably manage to avoid ebola.
 
Shambles said:
Fairy muff. Such comments get tossed about so frequently - and apparently in all seriousness - that the reply still applies to those who really do go in for those kinda fairy tales. I do <3s me tinfoilery but either make it so silly it's brilliant or stay vaguely within the realms of reality fellow tinfoilers, please.

And 90% of the population wouldn't be dead within weeks cos ebola tends to burn itself out rapidly cos it kills too many hosts too quickly for them to have much chance of spreading it too far. That's not to say it wouldn't still be pretty shit to have an outbreak here or anywhere else. From what I've gathered basic hygiene actually does do a lot to prevent infection so always wash your hands and stay away from the bush meat and you'll probably manage to avoid ebola.
Click to expand...

The powers that be say Ebola liquefies your organs and when you die your body explodes and sprays a gallon of infected blood every where, I doubt the nhs could cope if we had a full on epidemic.

I got a lot of tin foil hat stories and theories I will share when I can type proper -some may amuse you.
 
The powers that be do not say that at all cos it is a silly thing to say. When your internal organs are haemorraging you are unlikely to go out for a stroll in a public place. This is why one of the traditional methods of containing the disease in Africa is to just lock the poor unfortunates in their home and hope they emerge alive at some point later on. Same as they did here during the plague epidemics. People who are that ill are going nowhere fast.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top