Epidemic Prototype...how Ebola Spread To More Mobile, Cosmopolitan Nigeria

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Nigeria is about a half step ahead of the US on this one so it would be a good idea to follow what's happening there...

Ebola spreads to Nigeria. Government declares emergency. - The Washington Post Nigeria’s health minister has declared a health emergency as the deadly Ebola virus gained a foothold in Africa’s most populous nation, according to news reports...

...Nigerian authorities moved quickly late Wednesday, gathering isolation tents as five more cases of the Ebola Virus were confirmed in Lagos, a city bursting with 21 million people.

All five people are believed to be health workers who had direct contact with one man traveling from Ebola-ridden Liberia to Nigeria — making this country the fourth now infiltrated by the deadly disease....

Just one guy entered Nigeria with ebola...and that guy was a jet-setter American:

Forty-year-old Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American civil servant on a business trip to Nigeria two weeks ago, reportedly collapsed upon arrival at Lagos’ main airport. On Tuesday, State Health Commissioner Jide Idris said the man was diagnosed with the disease and died after he had been taken to a local hospital.

Which begs the question....now that the US is an ebola outbreak country, will other nations quarantine our citizens flying into their country?

Then...

According to local news reports, Nigerian authorities first downplayed the risk of exposure. Then on Tuesday, Idris disclosed that the infected man had come into some sort of contact with at least 70 people – airline passengers, airport workers and healthcare professionals — all of whom have been placed under surveillance. Seven have been quarantined, he said.

Sound familiar? And now more recently...

Ebola Outbreak Nigeria Braces for More Cases in Lagos ..The government is now screening travelers, obtaining isolation tents in case they receive new cases, and establishing an emergency operations center, while the other five patients with confirmed cases of Ebola are treated in isolation at a Lagos hospital...

..The government was following a total of 70 people who had primary contact with Sawyer, but the number of people being monitored is growing as the government tracks more people who were in contact with the six infected patients before they showed symptoms.

Here's one of the main allies of the spread of this disease, ignorance placed in position of authority [from the same as second link here]

Still, the outbreak hasn’t affected daily life in the economic hub of Africa’s largest economy. Even as some concerns mount among government officials, many people say they’re not worried.

“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe what people are saying that is happening in Nigeria,” said 28-year-old Christopher Ukpang, a security guard at an upscale Lagos supermarket. “I’m begging my fellow Nigerians, they should not be afraid of this sickness, it won’t affect us. We should have trust in God.”

Maybe random airport security people aren't PhDs in infectious diseases either. Who will watch the watchers? Well, this thread will for one..

 

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At the market I overheard a conversation where two guys were discussing the actual pragmatic application of setting up citizen armed patrols at key checkpoints in and out of the area if ebola starts spreading further. Everyone is talking about this. Their logic was that the CDC and the government in general cannot be trusted to do the right thing at the right time...

...I had a feeling it was going to come to this...

 

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Here's quite a bold, and perhaps even racist comment from the CDC about "the differences between the US outbreak" and Nigeria for example. What, Nigeria doesn't have IV drips to rehydrate patients? Our US/Texas patient vomited outside his apartment complex and the health officials let it sit there. I've seen rats eating dog vomit before [life on a farm]. Since bats can get ebola and spread it in their feces, how certain are we rats [closely related to bats] cannot also?

Oh sure...rest easy everyone. The CDC has got this one...

"Ebola can be scary. But there's all the difference in the world between the U.S. and parts of Africa where Ebola is spreading. The United States has a strong health care system and public health professionals who will make sure this case does not threaten our communities," said CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "While it is not impossible that there could be additional cases associated with this patient in the coming weeks, I have no doubt that we will contain this." CDC and Texas Health Department confirm first Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S. -- ScienceDaily

The ill person did not exhibit symptoms of Ebola during the flights from West Africa and CDC does not recommend that people on the same commercial airline flights undergo monitoring, as Ebola is only contagious if the person is experiencing active symptoms.

OK, remember me saying that an epidemic's greatest ally is the spread of misinformation/ignorance "as fact"? Look at this guy's exhaustive report on what we know about ebola so far. As anyone who has any experience with disease knows, an asymptomatic person CAN transmit a virus. The virus is in their body, circulating, and the only reason they are asymptomatic currently is because there isn't a high enough viral load yet to overwhelm the body's immune system. When people "present a disease" it's when their immune system is finally overrun by that critical number of replicating vectors in their body. Think of HIV/AIDS as the perfect example of non-symptomatic transmission. A man with HIV who is even testing negative for it for up to 6 months, can still be infecting other men during that time.:

There is some confusion in the press (most notably in CNN) about the nature of Ebola and perhaps about some of the details of this outbreak. Here, I want to provide some basic data to help clear some of this up. CNN reported at one point that you can get Ebola only after a person is symptomatic, and (in the same story) at any time a person is infected even if they are not symptomatic. It is probably the case that as long as Ebola is in a person’s system, they can spread it. Ebola Outbreak in West Africa Some basic information Updated 8211 Greg Laden s Blog