Conference back40::soapbox

>                         <<< Note 415.0 by ASDG::FAY >>>
>                                -< Ebola Fever >-
>
>    Has anyone heard the latest rumor of an Ebola fever outbreak?

    Saw the movie already....they're out for the HMOs.

    I find the coincidence between Robin Cook's movie on
    TV and this outbreak a little unnerving.
    bob

    DUCK AND COVER.   It would be about as useful as anything else you
    could do.  Try reading the book The Hot Zone; it's all about the
    Ebola Virus and the outbreak in Washington DC in 1960's and again in 
    1993--and it's real.  To give you an idea how nice a virus it is, I 
    heard The Hot Zone on a book tape on the way to work and almost upchucked.
    
    You can't catch it by casual contact, like AIDs (I believe) there
    has to be an exchange of bodily fluid, but that can mean anything
    the body excretes including a sneeze.  It's supposed to be the most 
    deadly virus there is and it scares the CDC whitless.
    
    The best you can do to protect yourself is, if there is an outbreak, 
    wear to a mist mask/respirator and don't touch anything with naked 
    hands, or feet, and keep away from people.
    
    There was an outbreak of a similar virus in Australia a couple of
    months ago, several horses died and their trainer.
    
    
    Pleasant dreams children....
    
    

If it ain't one thing...

It's two things.

    
    ...it starts with a rash.

    >it starts with a rash.
    
    Does it itch or just look bad when your on a date? :)
    
    ...Tom

    There is currently a suspected outbreak of Ebola or something similar;
    a city of 600,000 is under quarantine by government troops and several
    hundred people have already died.  Thank your stars the city is in
    Zaire and hopefully they'll keep it contained.
    
    DougO

    AP 9 May 95 23:23 EDT V0617
 
    Copyright 1995 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
    KINSHASA, Zaire (AP) -- Soldiers blocked routes into a city of 600,000
    that was placed under quarantine Tuesday after more than 100 people
    died of a mysterious disease that may be caused by one of the world's
    deadliest viruses.  A consultant for the World Health Organization said
    the Ebola virus was responsible for the deaths. The U.S. Centers for
    Disease Control and Prevention said it was sending a team of
    investigators equipped with protective suits and respirators, in
    cooperation with the World Health Organization. 

    "With the little we know, we're going to have to assume that this could
    be Biosafety Level 4," the highest level of concern of infection, said
    Dr. Rima Khabbaz, an infectious disease specialist at the centers. 

    The investigators weren't expected to arrive in Kinshasa for at least
    two days, said CDC spokesman Bob Howard. 

    CDC experts were analyzing victims' blood samples which arrived from
    Zaire on Monday, Howard said. The testing could take as long as 72
    hours, he said. 

    Dr. Muyembe Tamfun, a microbiologist and consultant to the World Health
    Organization, blamed the Ebola virus for the illness that began
    sweeping Kikwit, 375 miles east of Kinshasa, the capital, in mid-April. 

    Ebola, which causes hemorrhaging, fevers and vomiting, was considered
    the most deadly virus before the appearance of HIV, which causes AIDS.
    Ebola kills about 90 percent of those it infects and there is no
    treatment or vaccine. 

    The virus' ferocity has given it notoriety in popular culture. Ebola
    was the virus fought in the movie "Robin Cook's 'Virus,"' which
    appeared Monday on NBC television. The recent movie "Outbreak"
    concerned a hemorrhagic virus that first appeared in Zaire, although it
    was not specifically named as Ebola. 

    Doctors have not confirmed the cause of the outbreak, Khabbaz said. She
    acknowledged that Ebola "is a suspect any time you hear of anything
    with bleeding and hemorrhage." 

    Investigators hope to reach Kikwit in a few days and the diagnosis
    should be relatively rapid "if it's something we know and have dealt
    with," Khabbaz said.

    In 1976, 274 of 300 people infected in an Ebola outbreak in one village
    in Zaire died. Ebola is spread through bodily fluids and secretions,
    though not through casual contact. 

    Officials at Zaire's health ministry say the outbreak began April 10
    when a surgical patient at Kikwit's hospital contaminated medical
    personnel there. 

    Sixty-three people remained hospitalized with the illness in Kikwit on
    Tuesday. Health officials equipped with gloves, masks and other
    protective equipment were being sent to the city to deal with the
    outbreak, and Tamfun appealed for international assistance. 

Nightline will be about this tonight.

Victims bleed from the eyes and ears; have bloody diarhea; over 90%
fatality rate.

Hope this helps,

Art

    I'm set. I am wearing alumin foil suit under my cloths. No cosmic ray 
    bug gonna get me!:) Not even 'Biker Mice from Mars'.:)  

    To roughly describe it, you rot from the inside out.  When they
    operated on one victim in 76 the inside of his body looked like
    it had been dead for a couple of weeks.  The liver was almost liquid.
    
    

    Why do I always stumble on these topics when I'm (was) eating
    lunch? :-(
    

Could be worse.  You could be eating liver.

    <---- I wish _I_ had said that.

21:9  But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for
 these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.

21:10  Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom
 against kingdom:
    
21:11  And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and
 PESTILENCES; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

    <--- *barf*
    
    wot's that done to the thumper index?
    
    ric

    >wot's that done to the thumper index?
    
    Unfortuately, the thumper index is only affected by topics. Thumper
    comments within non-thumper topics are not evaluated. If someone would
    like to do the work we could do note by note. This would be a very time
    consuming job, I think.
    
    ...Tom

Does a non-thumper topic become a thumper topic if the majority of the
replies are thumper replies?

    What if Bambi replies?

    >Does a non-thumper topic become a thumper topic if the majority of the
    >replies are thumper replies?
    
    Probably, but it is too much work to calculate.
    
    ...Tom

    	re .18
    
    	What?  And institute tyranny of the majority?  Blasphemy!
    
    	:^)

    FWIW, Mike has a point.  We certainly have had our share of record or
    very bad floods, hurricanes, snowstorms, earthquakes, famine and pestilence
    lately.  Seems to be getting worse each decade, is does.
    
    -steve (not thumping, just pointing out the obvious  8^) )

    Here's another example on major earthquakes (those 6.0 and higher on
    the Richter scale).  From 1900-1950, the world averaged 3 major 
    earthquakes per decade.  From 1950-1960 there were 13; 1960-1970 there 
    were 30; 1970-1980 there were 52; 1980-1990 there were 87; and so far in 
    this decade (5 years) there have been over 100!
    
    The one on June 9, 1994 that was 400 miles below South America was the
    strongest quake ever recorded by seismologists.  The estimates are that
    it was a 10!
    
    Mike

    My 99 year old grandfather has a theory that works (for him),
    
    
    it was all those "Sputniks" fired into space that's causing havoc!!
    

    Yes, yes, a communistic plot!!  
    
    ;^)

    .23 Here's another example on major earthquakes (those 6.0 and higher
    .23 on the Richter scale).  From 1900-1950, the world averaged 3 major
    .23 earthquakes per decade.  From 1950-1960 there were 13; 1960-1970
    .23 there were 30; 1970-1980 there were 52; 1980-1990 there were 87; and so
    .23 far in this decade (5 years) there have been over 100!
    
    .23 The one on June 9, 1994 that was 400 miles below South America was
    .23 the strongest quake ever recorded by seismologists.  The estimates are
    .23 that it was a 10!
    
    So what .23 are you trying to say that increased rates of Earthquacks 
    cause Ebola Fever? 

RE: 415.23 by OUTSRC::HEISER "the dumbing down of America"

> Here's another example on major earthquakes...

Source please.


Phil

All this stuff about increased earthquake activity... of course
it could be nothing to do with more sensitive equipment and increased
communications...!

Anyway, the world's probably already ended, we just haven't noticed
yet!

Chris.

    
>Anyway, the world's probably already ended, we just haven't noticed
>yet!
    
    
    	The notification is probably hung up in NM$QUEUE somewhere.
    

See

	http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/cgi-bin/quakes

/john

>    	The notification is probably hung up in NM$QUEUE somewhere.
    
I'd blame Windows '95 myself.  Oops, that *is* VMS, isn't it?  :)

Chris.

    
    [Insert a very long wait state here.]
    
    "Hello, Microsoft Customer Assistance."
    
    "I believe the world has ended, and your software failed to
     notify me of this."
    
    "Ah, yes, you see that is a feature of our new operating
     system. We surpress the display of end of world messages
     since there's nothing the customer can do about them
     anyway. It's a feature."
    
    -b

>    Here's another example on major earthquakes (those 6.0 and higher on
>    the Richter scale).  ...

>   so far in this decade (5 years) there have been over 100!

I think there are a lot more than that, more like one per week.  Everytime I
look at the data from the National Earthquake Information Service (the URL
in the previous reply) I see at least one that's 6.0 or more, most recently
a 6.2 three days ago near the Philippine Islands.

/john

I blame it on rock'n'roll.

    
    
    the virus came from the rainforest areas.
    the rainforest are getting even with us.
    
    

    I see that, John.  I was being conservative because of the critics in
    here.  Once again, 'Boxers are pooh-poohing the facts.

    >FWIW, Mike has a point.  We certainly have had our share of record or
    >very bad floods, hurricanes, snowstorms, earthquakes, famine and pestilence
    >lately.  Seems to be getting worse each decade, is does.
    
    Based on recorded records from how far back?? Based on the keeping of
    records for such things it may seem like it is getting worse. However,
    the sampling is too small to make this determination even if we use
    only 7000 years as an arbitrary earth life. I think we should use 2-4
    billion years, but that's just me.
    
    ...Tom

Ebola Zaire

Copied without permission from _The Hot Zone_, by Richard Preston.

Ebola Zaire attacks every organ and tissue in the human body except skeletal
muscle and bone. It is a perfect parasite because it transforms virtually every
part of the body into a digested slime of virus particles. The seven mysterious
proteins that, assembled together, make up the Ebola-virus particle, work as a
relentless machine, a molecular shark, and they consume the body as the virus
makes copies of itself. Small blood clots begine to appear in the bloodstream,
and the blood thickens and slows, and clots begine to stick to the walls of blood
vessels. This is known as pavementing, because the clots fit together in a
mosaic. The mosaic thickens and throws more clots, and the clots drift
through the blodstream into the small capillaries, where they get stuck. This
shuts off the blood supply to various parts of the body, causing dead spots to
apear in the brain, liver, kidneys, lungs, intestines, testicles, breast tissue (of
men as well as women), and all through the skin. The skin develops red spots,
called petechiae, which are hemorrhages under the skin. Ebola attacks
connective tissue with particular ferocity; it multiplies in collegen, the chief
constituent protein of the tissue that holds the organs togehter. (The seven
Ebola proteins somehow chew up the body's structural proteins.) In this way,
collagen in the body turns to mush, and the underlayers of the skin die and
liquefy. The skin bubbles up into a sea of tiny white blisters mixed with red
spots known as a maculopapular rash. This rash has been likened to tapioca
pudding. Spontaneous rips appear in the skin, and hemmoraghic blood pours
from the rips. The red spots on the skin grow and spread and merge to become
huge, spontaneous bruises, and the skin goes soft and pulpy, and can tear off if
it is touched with any kind of pressure. Your mouth bleeds, and you bleed
around your teeth, and you may have hemorrhages from the salivary glands --
literally every opening in the body bleeds, no matter how small. The surface if
the toungue turns brilliant red and the sloughs off, and is swallowed or spat
out. It is said to be extraordinarily painful to lose the surface of one's tongue.
The tongue's skin may be torn off during rushes of thre black vomit. The back
of the throat and the lining of the wind pipe may also slough off, and the dead
tissue slides down the windpipe into the lungs or is coughed up with sputum.
Your heart bleeds into itself; the heart muscle softens and has hemorrhages
into its chambers, and blood squeezes out of the heart muscle as the heart
beats, and it floods the chest cavity. The brain becomes clogged with dead
blood cells, a conditions known as sludging of the brain. Ebola attacks the
lining of the eyeball, and the eyeballs may fill up with blood: you may go blind.
Droplets of blood stand out on the eyelids: you may weep blood. The blood runs
from your eyes down your cheeks and refuses to coagulate. You may have a
hemispherical stroke, in which one whole side of the body is paralyzed, which
is invariably fatal in a case of Ebola. Even while the body's internal organs are
becoming plugged with coagulated blood, the blood that streams out of the
body cannot clot; it resembles whey being squeezed out of curds. The blood has
been stripped of its clotting factors. If you put the runny Ebola blood in a test
tube and look at it, you see that the blood is destroyed. Its red cells are broken
and dead. The blood looks as if it has been buzzed in an electric blender.

Ebola kills a great deal of tissue while the host is still alive. It triggers a
creeping, spotty necrosis that spreads through all the internal organs. The liver
bulges up and turns yellow, begins to liquefy, and then it cracks apart. The
cracks run across the liver and deep inside it, and the liver completely dies and
goes putrid. The kidneys becomes jammed with blood clots and dead cells, and
cease functioning. As the kidneys fail, the blood becomes toxic with urine. The
spleen turns into a single huge, hard blood clot the size of a baseball. The
intestines may fill up completely with blood. The lining of the gut dies and
sloughs off into the bowels and is defecated along with large amounts of blood.
In men, the testicles bloat up and turns black-and-blue, the semen goes hot
with Ebola, and the nipples may bleed. In women, the labia turn blue, livid, and
protrusive, and there may be massive vaginal bleeding. The virus is a
catastrophe for a pregnant woman: the child is aborted spontaneously and is
usually infected with Ebola virus, born with red eyes and a bloody nose.

Ebola destroys the brain more thoroughly than does Marburg, and Ebola
victims often go into epileptic convulsions during the final stage. The
convulsions are generalized grand mal seizures -- the whole body twitches and
shakes, the arms and legs thrash around, and the eyes, sometimes bloody, roll
up into the head. The tremors and convulsions of the patient may smear or
splatter blood around. Possibly this epileptic splashing of blood is one of
Ebola's strategies for success -- it makes the victim go into a flurry of seizures
as he dies, spreading blood all over the place, thus giving the virus a chance to
jump to a new host -- a kind of transmission through smearing.

Ebola (and Marburg) multiplies so rapidly and powerfully that the body's
infected cells become crystal-like blocks of packed virus particles. These
crystal are broods of virus getting ready to hatch from the cell. They are known
as bricks. The bricks, or crystals, first appear near the center of the cell and
then migrate towards the surface. As a crystal reaches a cell wall, it
disintegrates into hundres of individual virus particles, and the broodlings
push through the cell wall like hair and floot away in the bloodstream of the
host. The hatched Ebola particles cling to cells everywhere in the body, and get
inside them, and continue to multiply. It keeps on multiplying until areas of
tissue all through the body are filled with crystalloids, which hatch, and more
Ebola particles drift into the bloodstream, and the amplification continues
inexorably until a droplet of the hosts blood can contain a hundred million
individual particles.

After death, the cadaver suddenly deteriorates: the internal organs, having
been dead or partially dead for days, have already begun to dissolve, and a sort
of shock-related meltdown occurs. The corpse's connective tissue, skin, and
organs, already peppered with dead spots, heated by fever, and damaged by
shock, begin to liquefy, and the fluids that leak from the cadaver are saturated
with Ebola-virus particles.

Have a nice day.

-- Jim

    On Earthquakes:
    
    Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the tracking techniques had
    become better and more accurate since the 30ies or even the 70ies.
    
    Heiko

    .40
    
    they have
    
    .23 is on drugs
    
    ric

    You don't need super-science to detect a 6.0 earthquake.  Why do you
    think that only the big earthquakes are mentioned?
    
    -steve

    RE .39
    
    OOPs, let's hope Reese (.12) wasn't reading this when eating his
    breakfast.  It did nothing to help down my bagle and I knew what was
    coming.
    

   Ban Ebola fever!!

    .43
    
    Unfortunately, SHE was eating her breakfast (didn't need those
    eggs anyhoo) :-(
    
    After reading that charming tome, I sincerely hope the folks
    shipping samples from Zaire to Atlanta (CDC) have the unholy thing
    packed properly.
    
    

    nasty

One wonders how *anyone* survives...

    or if it's worth surviving

    Who can I sue if I contract it?
    

    You wouldn't have the guts to sue if you ever contracted it.

    
    	Boo!!
    

    hmm ... yes, i wonder what state any survivors of this disease are in!?
    
    ric

    	Well it sounds like Dr. Kevorkian is the only one
    	who can help you if you get it...:(
    

    
    One expert researcher last night stated that ebola is a very ancient
    virus, that's been hidden away in the rainforest areas.And there are
    others. All of the intrusion into the rainforest by man, is how
    this virus has made contact with the human race. For such an old
    planet, life just has more surprises around every corner.
    
    Dave
    

    .54
    
    it can't be more than 4000years old can it? huh?
    
    ric
    8^)

    Sounds like it's perfect for an X-Files script.

Killer virus spreads in Zaire
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reuters

KINSHASA (9:17 a.m.) - The deadly Ebola virus, one of the most lethal
diseases known to man, has spread to a third town in Zaire and a leading
official expressed concern that families of victims were dumping them in
hospital and fleeing.

But the World Health Organisation and the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres
(MSF), who have foreign experts battling the disease on the ground, remained
confident they would be able to contain the outbreak which has killed at
least 29 people.

Two medical experts from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
in Atlanta and one from the Institut Pasteur in Paris rushed from Kinshasa
to Kikwit, where the virus surfaced in March.

"We will stay for as long as it is necessary," one of the three told
Reuters. He declined to be named.

"The situation is so urgent," said a U.S. embassy spokesman in Kinshasa,
adding that foreign embassies were pledging aid.

The virus, named after a river in north Zaire, normally hits monkeys and
other animals but sometimes jumps to humans. Outbreaks in Zaire and Sudan in
1976 and 1979 were contained by public health measures, but still killed
hundreds of people.

With Kikwit under quarantine and the authorities in the teeming capital
blocking roads from the affected region, the WHO said in Geneva on Friday
that the virus had spread.

It listed four hospitals where it had been identified. Two in Kikwit, a town
of 500,000 people some 500 km (310 miles) from Kinshasa, one at Mosango 100
km (60 miles) away and one at Yassa Bonga, 250 km (160 miles) from Kikwit.

"The pattern is of infectious patients being transferred to these hospitals
from the 350-bed Kikwit General Hospital where most of the initial cases
appear to have occurred," a WHO statement said. Health workers are
particularly at risk.

The virus, which causes a form of haemorrhagic fever and for which there is
no known cure or vaccine, kills as many as nine out of 10 people who
contract it. "Transmission of the virus through close contact is continuing
to occur," the WHO said.

Kinshasa governor Bernadin Mungul Diaka said the authorities were concerned
that families were dumping sick relatives in hospital and fleeing. "Those
who have died from the disease were abandoned by their families," he told
Reuters.

The WHO and MSF say public health measures can contain the virus, which
spreads through close contact with blood or bodily fluids. "I think it can
be confined and there will not be a large outbreak all over the place," Dr
Eric Verschueren, the head of the MSF medical mission to Zaire, said in
Brussels.

The WHO's Geneva statement, based on a report from its team in Zaire, said
27 people had died from Ebola and 22 others were hospitalised, "many of them
in terminal stages of illness." MSF put the death toll at 29. Three Italian
nuns are among the dead.

Kinshasa's governor has closed roads to the city from Bandundu province,
which produces almost half of its food.

"I have barred all movement of people into Kinshasa from Bandundu
(province)," Mungul said on Thursday, adding that he had stopped small
aircraft flying in from the zone.

"If the disease penetrates to Kinshasa that will be a catastrophe," he said,
adding that the mortuary in the city of five million people had room for
only 150 corpses.

The government declared Kikwit a disaster zone and slapped a quarantine
order on the town. "The movement of people either entering or leaving is
subject to sanitary control," it said.

Zaire's old colonial ruler Belgium has taken steps to ensure passengers
arriving by plane from Zaire do not bring the virus.

Officials had reported at least 90 deaths in Kikwit but blamed some on an
associated outbreak of bloody diarrhoea there.

      re: .39
    
      Thats the worst disease I think I've ever heard save perhaps
      a couple others in that the debilitation is years (Huntington's
      chorea).
    
      I can't help but wonder how some survive and in what state the
      survivors are typically in.
    
    						Tony

    	Once you survive the disease, are you immune to it in the
    	future?  Perhaps a serum or vaccine can be made from cells 
    	from survivors...

    If you contract this fever, do you feed it or starve it?

	You know what they say:

Steed a fever and frarve a cold - or is it the other way around.

ME

    
    It was reported that one hospital in Zaire was deserted.  Only
    20 patients with Ebola remains there.

    -.1
    
    So, what happens to stop it?
    

    Death of the host.

>    Death of the host.

Whazzis?  Another thumper reply?

    Can you transubstantiate this?

    There's no stopping it at present; just hope they have contained
    it.
    
    Local station mentioned that personnel at Hartsfield airport were
    paying closer attention to original take-off points for people
    on international flights where passengers typically makes connections
    from flights that originated in Africa.
    
    I wondered if it was just so much hype; from what's been described
    Ebola strikes fast after exposure and there is no disguising the
    symptoms.  
    
    Apparently no one told them the CDC was bringing the virus here
    special delivery :-}
    
    

    I swear this has been on the X-Files.

    
    	Yes!!  You're right.
    
    	Must have been a re-broadcast ... 2-3 weeks ago, a package arrived
    	from Africa [or some jungly place] at a prison, and the prison was
    	shut down when it was discovered that "something" was causing an
    	outbreak of a very nasty virus.
    
    	Not everyone who came in contact with the virus caught it ... but
    	you didn't need a fluid exchange to contract it, either.  So it
    	was more like "The Stand" in that sense.
    

    re.71
    
    not all of africa is "jungly"....lived in ethiopia for 18 months
    
    it's drier than a popcorn f**t....except  for 2 hours a day during the 
    
    rainy season

    	How long is the onset of symptoms after infection?

    
    re.71
    
    x-files,
    
    the episode had a title of" F.emasculata." That was the name of 
    the bug from the jungle. One had to get a "squirt" from the zit like
    growth to catch the infection.Since tiny little larvae would then
    enter the body. And from there, those zit like things would start
    growing until the popped on somebody, spraying them with some 
    gross looking yogurt stuff.
    
    great show.
    
    Dave
    
    
    
    
    
    

    Ban assault yogurt zits!

    Makes you realize how brave the health workers there who stayed, at the
    risk of their own life, and that of their families, to try to make the
    ill healthy and prevent its spreading.  And also of the Western exp
    who are flying there to try to help.  Body condom please.
    
    Imagine if it happened here?  The ways that people would use to
    escape!?  Scary, very scary.  Whatta way to go.  :^(

    AP 15 May 95 19:27 EDT V0719
 
    Copyright 1995 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
    KINSHASA, Zaire (AP) -- The death toll from the killer Ebola virus
    surged Monday as health officials hunted for a riverboat captain and a
    nurse who may have brought the epidemic to the Zairian capital, a
    crowded city of 6 million.  Authorities fear the two could frustrate
    their attempts to contain the virus to the region surrounding Kikwit,
    the city 370 miles east of Kinshasa where the outbreak began in March. 

    Seventeen new Ebola deaths were confirmed Monday along with four new
    cases of Ebola, all of them in Kikwit, the World Health Organization
    said in Geneva.  That brought the total of confirmed cases to 84. Of
    those, 77 have died, including a fourth Italian nun who was caring for
    Ebola patients at Kikwit General Hospital. 

    There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, which kills 80 percent of those
    who contract it, usually within days. Victims suffer from violent
    diarrhea and vomiting, and finally die with blood pouring from their
    eyes, ears and noses. 

    "WHO experts expect a significant increase in cases during the next two
    to three weeks among people who are incubating the disease having been
    exposed to it in the care of relatives or neighbors," said WHO
    spokesman Richard Leclair.  Health workers were moving into the area
    around Kikwit to teach people how to avoid Ebola and to search
    street-by-street for new victims. 

    In addition to Kikwit, cases have been confirmed in the villages of
    Musango, Vanga, Yassa Bonga and Kenge, according to an international
    committee overseeing the response to the outbreak. Kenge is 125 miles
    east of Kinshasha and more than halfway along the main road from Kikwit
    to the capital. 

    Kikwit, a city of 600,000, has been quarantined. 

    Dr. Abdou Moudi, WHO's representative in Zaire, had only sketchy
    details on the two individuals who may have carried Ebola into
    Kinshasa. 

    The riverboat captain was treated for bloody diarrhea at a Kinshasa
    hospital and released before doctors realized his symptoms were similar
    to those for Ebola, Moudi said. 

    The captain was among hundreds of people who work on the Congo River, a
    major transportation link between Kinshasa and the interior. Kikwit is
    on a tributary, the Kwilu River. 

    Moudi said that the nurse may have been in contact with infected
    individuals in Kikwit and was now in Kinshasa. More information wasn't
    immediately available. 

    Health officials were searching for both to test them for the virus. 

    Earlier Monday, WHO spokesman Thomson Prentice had said that even if
    Ebola was confirmed in the capital, that wouldn't represent an
    acceleration of the epidemic. Kinshasa hospitals are prepared to deal
    with Ebola cases, and the public is being taught how to avoid the
    virus, he said. 

    Ebola has long been associated with monkeys, which also die of it. It
    is known to spread via bodily liquids, like the HIV virus which causes
    AIDS. Commonly, it enters through a break in the skin. 

    Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said Monday
    that the virus is the same one that killed 274 people in northern Zaire
    in 1976, providing some hope that they may eventually track the virus
    to its source. 

    The CDC said tests showed it is the most lethal of four kinds of Ebola. 

    Meanwhile, several nuns from the Sisters of Poverelle order, whose
    members worked at the Kikwit General Hospital where the virus broke
    out, are in quarantine. 

    None have shown Ebola symptoms after 21 days but must wait another week
    to be sure they are disease-free, the aid group Doctors Without Borders
    said. 

    The virus killed four Italian nuns who worked at the hospital. About 60
    nuns from the order are working in and around Kikwit. 

    Can you buy Ebola ribbons yet to show your concern?
    

    Don't waste your money on a ribbon, after 3 weeks they unravel...

    Is anyone else uncomfortable about the CDC bringing this stuff home for
    "testing"?

    
    they quarantined the journalists in one of the towns.
    
    

    Thanks for reminding us, Mr. Topaz :-)
    
    

    	So by that reply a few back, I guess that the symptoms appear
    	within 4 weeks of infection?
    
    	Is a person infectious during the period between infection and
    	display of symptoms?

    This is an interesting topic except I wonder why we hear about it day
    after day. Many people die of viral infections all the time. I would
    think more than have died of this infection during the same time
    period. Anyone have stats somewhere?
    
    ...Tom

    A friend's wife died of chicken pox 6 years ago.  At the time doctors
    told him that 90 people die every year in the U.S. of chicken pox.

     An Ebola Virus Web page can now be found at

	http://www.best.com/~pierre/ebola.html

     Bill
     

    do you have to do a set interface/nofluid or something first?

Passenger arriving at T.O. airport originating in Zaire has been
quarantined.

Don't think there are any signs of the disease yet, but Canada decided
that caution was prudent.

/john

    Heard that on the AM news /john.  Must be thrilling for other
    passengers and crew on that plane.  I KNOW it's reported that you
    can only catch Ebola by coming in contact with bodily fluids of
    someone who already has it, but it will make for a few sleepless
    nights for a few, I'm sure.
    
    

    
    	Uh-oh!!
    
    	What's the delay here on the "They can't do that!!" replies?
    

    
    body fluids-toilet seats.
    

    	achoo! honk honk! sinffle~
    
    	Oh I'm sorry did I spray you?

    Re: only passes via body fluids
    
    is the std. disclaimer implied? -> "...as far as we know today..."

    
    wonder if the version 5 and 6 of ebola will mutate with wings.
    
    

    	Once infected, how long before testing can detect it?

Good question, Joe. They mentioned that he will be quarantined for
21 days. I don't know if that's sufficient for incubation or reliable
testing or if it's just a shot in the dark.

    re .90
    
    With that in mind, have they quarentined the other passengers on the
    flight ??? If not, why not ?

A family from Zaire has been quarenteened in London

The claim is that you have to be pretty sick to spread the virus.  If this is
true, there'd be no danger to the other passengers.

The keyword he is 'claim'  I for one would want to put that claim
to the test.

Simon


P.S. Thanks for the spelling correction

Oh good.  We have a volunteer.

    I understand you have to come in touch with the "bodily fluids" of
    someone already ill.  I still wonder if an infected person sneezed,
    would that be considered "bodily fluid"?
    
    

    >> The claim is that you have to be pretty sick to spread the virus.
    >> If this is true, there'd be no danger to the other passengers.
    
    Right, but once they the disease develops, when they're now in
    whatever country their destination was, they become a serious
    danger to that country.
    
    I'm astounded that any flights out of Zaire are even being allowed
    to land in the destination countries, at least until this outbreak
    is under control.
    
    Chris

    re: .104
    
    I'd read in one of the earlier replies that sneezing and other
    airborne particles would transmit the virus, but I don't know
    if that was accurate or not.
    
    Apparently it is a good deal easier to transmit than, say, AIDS.
    That's why I believe stronger containment measures need to be 
    applied here, e.g., restricting the travel of those who have come
    into contact with infected persons.
    
    Chris

    re: sneeze
    
    See 415.2
    
    Chris

Banning all flights from Zaire because of Ebola would be like banning all
flights from the U.S. because of AIDS.

    I'm surprised I haven't seen a newsgroup called alt.zaire.die.die.die

    carpet -bomb Zaire!!!
    
    ric
    8^)
    (sorry - couldn't resist that)

    Couldn't they make better use of aluminum siding?

>> Banning all flights from Zaire because of Ebola would be like banning all
>> flights from the U.S. because of AIDS.
    
    But isn't Ebola much more easily transmittable than AIDS, and
    doesn't it have a much shorter incubation period, and isn't
    it easier to identify infected individuals?  If so, it might
    be more practical to confine it by restricting travel.  Ignoring
    the "rights" issues, of course.  And of course, it's not practical
    to try to control AIDS in this manner, because it's not highly
    communicable (not to mention its long incubation period, etc.).
    
    If a highly communicable and deadly disease is currently
    confined to one country, wouldn't it make sense to take measures
    to attempt to keep it confined there until the outbreak is
    controlled?
    
    Chris

    No you can't compare the two.

AIDS can be transmitted by people with no sign of disease.
Ebola is only transmitted by people who are visibly ill.

Both are transmitted by exchange of bodily fluids.

There are fewer than 200 confirmed cases of Ebola in Zaire, whose population
is about 1/10 the population of the U.S.  There are considerably more than
2000 HIV+ people in the U.S.

>> Both are transmitted by exchange of bodily fluids.
    
    This is the key point, actually.  Are the transmission "vectors"
    for Ebola as limited as they are for AIDS, or is Ebola more easily
    transmitted?  What I've read so far on this suggests that Ebola is
    more easily caught than AIDS, i.e., through much more casual and/or
    incidental contact or proximity.
    
    If that's the case (and I have no pointers other than what I've
    read here, and a little bit on the Web page), then we can't really
    presume to treat Ebola the same way we treat AIDS.
    
    Does anyone have any more information on transmission specifics?
    
    Chris

    re: transmission
    
    .57 says that the virus "spreads through close contact with blood
    or bodily fluids", but even that is a bit vague.  They did mention
    that three nuns were among the dead, who presumably would have
    contacted bodily fluids rather than exchanged them.
    
    Chris

    
    scientists can not categorically exclude the possibility that
    either virus might mutate into forms which spread on *contact*.
    
    they can't even say that now for either virus. when AIDS activists
    say that it doesn't spread through contact, what they mean is that
    scientifically gathered and interpreted data available today do not
    indicate this as a vector. they nor the scientists can say that it
    *cannot* be spread through casual contact. it is an unlikely event
    with odds close to, but not, zero.
    

    .118
    
    The strain of Ebola that infected the Monkey warehouse just outside of
    Washington DC in 1993 was airborn.  It mutated very effectively.
    Marberg and Ebola Zaire are caught only by contact with infected
    matter.  Zaire is the worst, Marberg is comparatively less sever.
    
    In the Hot Zone  (See note 415.39) the Doctor became infected when the 
    patient he was examining vomited in his face,  The Doctor survived, the 
    patient didn't.  Like Aids, the Ebola virus cannot survive outside the host
    (blood or some other bodily fluid) for long, about 20 minutes I
    believe.  But if you come into contact with infected matter while it is
    still alive and it gains access through the eye, a cut or open sore then 
    the virus can enter your body.  The incubation period I believe is
    14 days.
    
       

    
    The two individuals under quarantine in Toronto have still shown 
    no sign of Ebola.
    

    	I wonder how those two people must feel -- waiting for death
    	to exhibit its symptoms...

    Conspiracy theory du jour:
    
    Les Aspin died of ebola, but the gummint is keeping it secret cuz they
    want to use ebola against the militias.

Someone in Bern, Switzerland, is under quarantine after showing initial
signs of Ebola.

    
    Four suspected cases of Ebola in Zaire's capital, Kinshasa.
    

    This is getting out of hand. :*|

    I read today the disease has pretty much stabalised in Zaire.
    
    Oh well. We`ll have to wait `til the next episode of "repent!the end
    is nigh! Pestilance will roam the land due to all you sinners! This
    is a warning! ooooh!" type hysteria.
    
    

    REPENT!  THE END IS NEAR!!
    
    Sorry, just warming up for the next go around.  8^)
    
    Hopefully, we'll have a longer wait before our next bout of
    pestilence/earthquakes/floods/etc.     
    
    -steve

    
    The two men quarantined in Toronto have been released now,
    after having shown no signs of Ebola.
    

    repent the end of the world has come /to some anyway/
    
    7.3 magnitude quake on the russian island above japan

    
    LONDON (Reuter) - A group of researchers say a 36-year-old laboratory
    worker triggered April's outbreak of Ebola fever in Zaire.
    
    In a letter published in `The Lancet' medical journal, the team of
    international doctors and scientists who work for the World Health
    Organization say the outbreak started April 9 when the man was 
    transferred between hospitals in Kikwit.  No details were given about
    how he contracted Ebola.
    
    Medical personell who cared for the patient, either during surgery or
    on hospital wards, rapidly became ill.  The number of known deaths
    from the outbreak rose to 164 yesterday.
                      

Ebola Reston in Texas!

Fortunately, this strain is only contaigious among monkeys.

>Fortunately, this strain is only contaigious among monkeys.

	i haven't heard it stated that emphatically on the news.

    
    What the news said was that it is not the same virus as the African,
    Zaire Ebola. 

Well, yah, they THINK it's Reston.
I HOPE it's just Reston. I read Hot Zone. Yuk.

Figures - I just picked up my mail, and the only thing I got was postmarked

AUSTIN, TX.

Eeuuuuuuuuuuuw!

   .133 yes, but the news i've been listening to didn't say that
	it was absolutely not contractible by humans.

    
    re: .136
    
    I realize that Di... What I did hear was that the disease is
    contractible by humans, but is not supposed to be "deadly".. whatever
    that means...
    

    It is a strain that is known to infect only monkeys, not humans, except
    that it has changed very slightly, so they cannot be totally sure.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

>    It is a strain that is known to infect only monkeys, not humans, except
>    that it has changed very slightly, so they cannot be totally sure.

WTAG considers it a non-story, I guess. I haven't heard all that much. If the
above is true, it could be a new mutation.

    30 - 40 monkey destroyed in Texas - a few had the 
    Reston version of ebola not to be confused with the
    Zaire version which causes humans to melt from the
    inside out...
    
    Still nothing to monkey around with ...
    
    rrr

    Ebola Fever is a delusion that one is a hyperbola.