Ebola at Emery - (Aug/08/2014 )
Curious as to perspectives re. risk of bringing Dr. Brantley and Nurse Whitebol back to US.
you need direct contact to get infected.
if they take the needed precautions I can imagine that its safe.
I am not from the USA so perhaps its different from when I was from the USA, but I can understand it.
Altough: I would be inclinded to be in favor of a local hospital completely set up in on of the "infected" countries. By this I mean: a really well supported hospital (set up, controled by USA/european specialists) with all the needed money/equipment....
It seems more logical to deal with it like this rather than evacuating people back to their home countries.
Yeah, why we have all these high-tech super cool isolation stuff that is in every Hollywood film about some killer disease, planes with isolated wards and everything, all the research on how the disease transmit and enought sources to execute any precautions, when we can just leave the citizens of these "highly developed counties" (where I count every one that operates a BSL-4 lab, thus also mine) to die in a very provisional African hospital, where they come to help, right?
Apart from the medical issues (which I cannot estimate) there's also an ethical point: to help as much as possible medical staff that risk their life to fight this outbreak (they could also say we won't go there, please send samples which we analyse in our safe labs at home). I.e. it's moral support and a kind of acknowledgement for them.
Trof on Fri Aug 8 17:14:55 2014 said:
Yeah, why we have all these high-tech super cool isolation stuff that is in every Hollywood film about some killer disease, planes with isolated wards and everything, all the research on how the disease transmit and enought sources to execute any precautions, when we can just leave the citizens of these "highly developed counties" (where I count every one that operates a BSL-4 lab, thus also mine) to die in a very provisional African hospital, where they come to help, right?
Not sure you are responding to my post?
If so: perhaps you did not understand my point.
If its not ment as a reaction to my posts, never mind.
I am just going to make a general statement.
The idea (or how I see it) is not to set up a small (local) hospital just for a few "non african one".
The goal is to set up a real (good) hospital with all the knowledge/money/specialists that we have in europe/usa to take care of the infected people there. You can evacuate all the europeans/usa citizens to that hospital + the natives.
The idea to evacuate just the USA/europeans and leave the natives there to die?
In my opinion this if messed up!
(did you see the images from nigaria? How a possible infected man was left on the street for hours because of scared people...)
I guess it the normal way of dealing with this kind of situations?
1) locals die of ebola, too bad for them
2) its spreading a bit more, perhaps we should send help (a little bit)
3) its officially a spreading infection, lets send some of our doctors/specialists
3) its getting even worse, "our people" get infected , perhaps we can evacuate them
4) we evacuate our people
5) its getting even worse, perhaps we should invest in those countries themselves to stop the infection rather than just evacuating "our" people.
I always find it weird that we (europeans/usa) often know more about african illnesses/infections that local doctors/hospitals!
How come we do not invest (I know we do invest, but still something is off) in those countries rather than doing the research here? I accept that we research it, but something weird is going on.
I can speak about my country: we have a world known researchfacility for certain typical african diseases (like ebola, altough ebola is not studied anymore) and lots and lots of knowledge. Each year we accept African doctors to train them here .... but why are we not setting up a good funded research facility over there? Closer to the problem areas? Its weird!
Is it really about money? perhaps in the short run, but in the long run? Is it not better to stop the disease where it started rather than try to stop it when it already spread to europe for example?
hobglobin on Fri Aug 8 17:19:53 2014 said:
Apart from the medical issues (which I cannot estimate) there's also an ethical point: to help as much as possible medical staff that risk their life to fight this outbreak (they could also say we won't go there, please send samples which we analyse in our safe labs at home). I.e. it's moral support and a kind of acknowledgement for them.
Yes, but its a but a weird "reasoning".
You evacuate them? Why not the locals?
See also my post above.
Phil Geis on Fri Aug 8 15:10:03 2014 said:
Curious as to perspectives re. risk of bringing Dr. Brantley and Nurse Whitebol back to US.
Just being curious: in our news they reported that in the USA a lot of people are upset or against the evacuation of the 2 sick ones. That the general idea is that they should not be evacuated.
In Spain however (or europe in general) the people are actually saying to evacuate them (they are pro evacuation rather than against).
In spain it were the people that pushed the government to evacuate ....
What would be the reason for the comepletely different view on this?
Are the people in the USA made scared? Is there some sort of lobby against the evacuation?
It makes me, for example, also think about the anti-vaccin lobby in the USA that is also something (it seems it is) typical for the USA? (in europe there is no such big anti vaccin lobby, altough in some areas you also see it).
pito on Fri Aug 8 17:28:44 2014 said:
hobglobin on Fri Aug 8 17:19:53 2014 said:
Apart from the medical issues (which I cannot estimate) there's also an ethical point: to help as much as possible medical staff that risk their life to fight this outbreak (they could also say we won't go there, please send samples which we analyse in our safe labs at home). I.e. it's moral support and a kind of acknowledgement for them.
Yes, but its a but a weird "reasoning".
You evacuate them? Why not the locals?
See aslo my post above.
To evacuate so many people, I guess it would also overstrain our facilities, because you need for all of them quarantine stations and so on. And well it's also surely a mix of pragmatism and idealism only to help a few western specialists (which I think are volunteers, but correct me if I'm wrong), because our "natives" might not like if so many ill people are evacuated, the African countries/governments might not like it, as they might think that we want to patronise them, the local people there and the patients might not like it (think of how the outbreak is viewed there, often not a scientific point of view, I read that the outbreak is sometimes even ignored and patients might not like to leave their country and family).
And to build up a hospital there is surely a good idea, but you also need staff which want to work there, and it would need a lot of time, too much time I guess.
So it's a mix of diplomatic/political, scientific, local, bureaucratic issues whether measures are feasible or not. Surely it's not optimal there but for the situation and options there perhaps the best possible.
hobglobin on Fri Aug 8 18:01:11 2014 said:
pito on Fri Aug 8 17:28:44 2014 said:
hobglobin on Fri Aug 8 17:19:53 2014 said:
Apart from the medical issues (which I cannot estimate) there's also an ethical point: to help as much as possible medical staff that risk their life to fight this outbreak (they could also say we won't go there, please send samples which we analyse in our safe labs at home). I.e. it's moral support and a kind of acknowledgement for them.
Yes, but its a but a weird "reasoning".
You evacuate them? Why not the locals?
See aslo my post above.
To evacuate so many people, I guess it would also overstrain our facilities, because you need for all of them quarantine stations and so on. And well it's also surely a mix of pragmatism and idealism only to help a few western specialists (which I think are volunteers, but correct me if I'm wrong), because our "natives" might not like if so many ill people are evacuated, the African countries/governments might not like it, as they might think that we want to patronise them, the local people there and the patients might not like it (think of how the outbreak is viewed there, often not a scientific point of view, I read that the outbreak is sometimes even ignored and patients might not like to leave their country and family).
And to build up a hospital there is surely a good idea, but you also need staff which want to work there, and it would need a lot of time, too much time I guess.
So it's a mix of diplomatic/political, scientific, local, bureaucratic issues whether measures are feasible or not. Surely it's not optimal there but for the situation and options there perhaps the best possible.
Of course: evacuating all of them is impossible, thats why I am talking about setting up the necessary facilities right there!
I can undertand all your points, but you either make a progress or stand still...
And some point we will also be faced with this problem!
(think about malaria that is popping up in europe and predicted to be a problem the next decades in europe too)
I sometimes feel its often needed to be faced with the problem at the "home place" before its taken seriously....
pito on Fri Aug 8 18:14:05 2014 said:
Of course: evacuating all of them is impossible, thats why I am talking about setting up the necessary facilities right there!
I can undertand all your points, but you either make a progress or stand still...
And some point we will also be faced with this problem!
(think about malaria that is popping up in europe and predicted to be a problem the next decades in europe too)
I sometimes feel its often needed to be faced with the problem at the "home place" before its taken seriously....
but how many years it will take to build up such a hospital there with all the financial, bureaucratic and organisational hurdles? it surely needs also a working infrastructure (electricity, educated staff, water supply)...much too long for such an outbreak I think.
And well we had malaria in Europe until the 1950s I guess...but since the transmission path is broken (not enough infected hosts, mosquito eradication programs) it's difficult to come back.
And we have no apes and flying foxes in the wild here...