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Ebola ?


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If the experts tell us that ebola can live on in a dead person for hours after the death, why is it not sensible to assume that ebola could live on in the blood taken by a mosquito bite and passed to another person in a subsequent bite?

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Your complacency reflects the apparent attitude of the international authorities, and is one of lack of intent, rather than lack of capability. Not one airport or port has been closed to outgoing traffic todate, a perfectly doable exercise. It would also provide the ideal excuse for the use of extreme measures to prevent illegal entry into the EU, assuming the authorities had the bottle. As for "being wrong", they only have to get it wrong once, and safe is better than sorry.  As a maritime type, you'd be aware of the historic use of a yellow flag; which suggests they had a more cautious approach in the past.

I assume this is directed towards me. I'm not complacent, and nor are the authorities - realistic is more like it! As for your "yellow flag" remark, the Q flag is just a declaration that there is no OBVIOUS sign of disease on board a ship, not a cast iron guarantee. Do you share the opinion that the whole of Africa can be closed off from the outside world? Be realistic. It's no more possible to stop anybody leaving Africa than it is to quarantine everybody (from anywhere in the world mind you) as they enter this country.

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We wouldn't need to quarantine "the whole of Africa"; if the specific countries involved had been quarantined; and we wouldn't need to quarantine them if they'd quarantined the Town/Villages where the first cases were identified. Complacency, ignorance, incompetence and inadequate resources seem to have been in play till now - so perhaps time to take matters seriously.  As for border controls, you're right; ours are so porous as to be none existent; but that's not to say it couldn't be done if the political will was there. We've still got flights taking off from Liberia etc, possibly carrying this virus to all parts of the globe; so I wouldn't think it too difficult to close the airports down - although the horse has probably bolted by now.

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I think you underestimate the logistics involved in what you suggest, even if the governments of the countries were amenable to outside interference. It's very easy for you to glibly suggest stopping flights from Liberia taking off, any ideas how to go about this in the real world?

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Well seems we (the UK) have suddenly upped the status quite a lot from what they were saying on the radio the other day with screening programmes now due to start at key airports and a national exercise today to test the the emergency services and the government for an Ebola outbreak. 

If only more had been done a lot quicker over there maybe it wouldn't have got to the stage it has now with the spread being out of control and increasing at such an alarming rate :(



 

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Dizzy you are looking at it through the eyes of someone living in a country with a long established Public Health ethos and an NHS. Africa, for a large part, doesn't have these things.

True and you are right I was, I sometimes find it hard to take myself out of my own little 'world' :oops:  ... but then again maybe they should have been given a lot more help months ago to try and contain it and stop it spreading. 

 

Am I doing it again?... sorry :oops:

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It seems to me that burial is not really a good way of disposing of infected corpses especially if any of these bodily fluids can enter water courses. This is an epidemic that cries out for only cremation.

I'm surprised they aren't cremating them too, I wonder if there is a reason why they aren't doing that ?

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Nigeria is a relatively rich country.

 

I've just been watching a report from Liberia on Sky. The people trying to help are up against a culture of people unwilling to let their dead relatives' bodies be taken away and cremated, they want to stick with their old ways of dealing with the dead, but this just helps it to spread. People are in denial there.

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... and elsewhere it seems. As I said, some of these countries are plagued with ignorance, superstition, corruption and a complete lack of organisational ability. Far better, if the £millions we give their Governments were spent either directly on building a health and educational infrastructure or being assigned to fund a global UN/WHO disaster response organisation.

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