Here is letter sent to George Ure by a doctor talking about Ebola. VERY SCARY!
http://urbansurvival.com/coping-a-doctors-ebola-note/
Coping: A Doctor’s Ebola Note
Posted on August 14, 2014 by George Ure
As we head out this morning on our latest/next adventure, I wanted to pass along a note from a doctor/read of ours.
He sent in a marvelous note after reading one of our missives earlier this month. I would have posted it sooner, but it got stuck under a pile of other emails – my bad.
George, thank you for your column today, especially the prepping notes, it was worth the annual fee just for todays information. (for my friends, see
http://urbansurvival.com/coping-prepping-for-a-ebola/ )
However, there is some information on Ebola that you need to know and to disseminate. If people don’t read anything else that I have written here, please understand that IF YOU TREAT A PATIENT WITH EBOLA OR GET NEAR THEM YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE. You have no idea what it is like to take care of someone with this disease.
Basically it is impossible without knowing a tremendous amount about disease transmission. Even the doctors with all their disease transmission gear don’t have a clue.
And toilet paper needs for someone with this disease? You must be kidding George. How about towels and towels and new mattresses? How about lime and burning all used articles of clothing? Is anyone prepared for that?
These people infected are literally DISSOLVING from the inside. Just to show you what you don’t understand, put some poop (your own or any animal, mix it with some blood (I don’t know where you’re going to get that lol…. local butcher? I don’t know), put them in a bucket outside in temperatures over 90 degrees (the body is around 100 degrees), let it sit for about 5 hours, and go smell of it for at least a few minutes. The odor is so overpowering you have no idea.
Now imagine you have to be around that, and that the smell brings with it an infectious agent that will kill you in the same way. Ebola is almost certain death. The only people who have survived have access to high intensity care, usually hospital intensive care type care, and even then their odds are low of survival. Now imagine hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of people infected. Imagine your child infected, are you not going to try and take care of them?
This is the problem, most parents and loved ones wont be able to stay away, and they will become infected and spread it on to others. I have tried for years to break diagnosis of this disease down into a nutshell, how to recognize, and be concerned that someone might have Ebola, and I came up with the following, if you see someone bleeding from the eyes and the nose, turn around and go the other way, 20 feet is minimum distance, otherwise you are at very high risk of becoming infected. This is actual BLEEDING (not just red eyes). Don’t touch anything they have touched, don’t stay in the area. Whole villages have disappeared for not understanding these simple facts.
That’s it, for more at length, my qualifications are 30+ years of “practicing” medicine, I have participated in research at major research institutions (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston Mass.), have practiced in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, and I have a wide interest in socio-economics, politics, epidemiology, and the world in general. I have logged over 250,000 patient encounters in my career.
Ebola breaks down into 5 or 6 strains. The most worrisome problem, detailed in the non-fiction book, “The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus” which details the “Reston” strain, which became air-borne in a research facility, infected humans, but apparently was only lethal to the monkeys, which died or were put down.
Stephen King said, at the time, that it was the scariest book he had ever read. In other words, imagine a flu that is circulating that is 90% fatal.
Currently, and apparently (there are multiple reports going about the current Ebola might be respiratory spread, although I do not see any hard evidence that that is the case), this Ebola strain is not spread by respiratory secretions. Remember though, that a person with Ebola, is shedding billions (Billions with a B) of viral particles all the time in “body” fluids. Vomit, diarrhea, sweat(?), saliva, nasal secretions (?) etc. It possibly only takes one viral particle to infect you.
Current fatality rates appear to be in the 60-90% range. There is some concerns though about the “mixing” of the current Ebola strains, and just like the flu, possibly a renegade new strain appearing, that may be spread like the flu, easily, through respiratory secretions.
The Reston strain (the Ebola strain that is spread like the flu through respiratory secretions…… it was found in at least one of the human researchers, but it caused no disease in the humans, but killed the monkeys) has been found in pigs (a known “incubator” for new flu infections that are then transmitted to humans) in the Phillipines,
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_02_03/en/ , and more on that here,
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/outbreaks/qaEbolaRestonPhilippines.htm .
For a general big grouping on viruses look here (Ebola is under Filoviridae, with Marburg Virus),
http://virology.net/big_virology/bvfamilygroup.html .
It is clear that the Ebola virus is evolving, see
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07291401/Ebola_Zaire_Guinea_SL.html .
I’m neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist, but it is clear from above that this virus does have the ability to spread, and rather rapidly at that.
Everyone should take the precautions you mentioned in your newsletter, learn to recognize the very simple signs of possible Ebola I mentioned above (bleeding eyes, bleeding nose), and take care to stay away from any such individual.
And to be clear, when I say bleeding eyes, I mean some droplets of blood coming from the eyes, instead of clear tears. This is by NO MEANS an absolute positive sign of Ebola, or any other disease, or the only symptoms that might occur in someone with Ebola (early signs of Ebola can include fever and body aches, which can occur in about a thousand other diseases as well including common cold), but is meant to be a sign that might enable someone to live through this epidemic.
Another tidbit, Ebola virus has been found in semen 61 days after infection and transmission can occur in this manner,
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/,
more information here,
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/
and other Ebola reading if one wants it..
http://govtslaves.info/ebola-virus-released-atlanta-sewage-treatment-plant/
…. I do not vouch for any of the above links. Read it and gather information as you will. One thing is clear, this disease is evolving as many viral diseases do, have some common sense, and prepare as you are able, but have no fear, which disables us all.
I apologize for the length. Keep up the good work.
Dr R.
As we take off on our trip, we appreciate the risks, and more so, the idea that over time, if Ebola spread continues to ramp up, we may not be doing much travel in the future.