Anyone following the ebola outbreak?

[Swordsoffreedom]

Well here comes the second one
Second Ebola Victim Arrives at Atlanta Hospital

ATLANTA — A North Carolina missionary who contracted Ebola while working at a hospital in Liberia returned to the United States Tuesday to begin treatment at the same specialized isolation unit as another American aid worker who has the virus.

The missionary, Nancy Writebol, was taken to Emory University Hospital on Tuesday afternoon after flying to the United States overnight aboard a private air ambulance that landed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, in suburban Cobb County.\\

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/us/nancy-writebol-kent-brantly-ebola-atlanta.html?_r=0

[bryant.coleman]

The disease appears to have arrived in Nigeria, a country with a population of more than 200 million. Eight people are suspected of being infected with Ebola, while one of them have already tested positive for the disease.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11304623

And it seems like Saudi Arabia is also in trouble.

http://q13fox.com/2014/08/05/ebola-fear-spreads-as-man-in-saudi-arabia-begins-showing-symptoms/

[Balthazar]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

Another experimental drug has been tested successfully. Seems to be effective but it's too costly for mass production.

[desired_username]

Outbreak? More like Ebola scare. Distracts the peasant.

[niothor]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/ebola-worrying-disease

The 800-plus deaths from Ebola in Africa so far this year are indisputably tragic, but it is important to keep a sense of proportion – other infectious diseases are far, far deadlier.

Since the Ebola outbreak began in February, around 300,000 people have died from malaria, while tuberculosis has likely claimed over 600,000 lives. Ebola might have our attention, but it’s not even close to being the biggest problem in Africa right now. Even Lassa fever, which shares many of the terrifying symptoms of Ebola (including bleeding from the eyelids), kills many more than Ebola – and frequently finds its way to the US.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-outbreak-british-experts-urge-us-and-who-to-give-africans-experimental-cure-9650937.html

[RedDiamond]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

Another experimental drug has been tested successfully. Seems to be effective but it's too costly for mass production.

It is same ZMapp which has now been tested with two humans and three monkeys. So still some work to do before starting mass production...

[bigtimespaghetti]

Outbreak? More like Ebola scare. Distracts the peasant.

Could be a distraction, or rather simply being capitalized on. The human race has always gone through periods of devastation brought on by disease, let's hope that this is not one of them.

[bryant.coleman]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

Another experimental drug has been tested successfully. Seems to be effective but it's too costly for mass production.

Hmm... too costly for mass production ? That is suspicious. How costly can this get? This is going to be like those anti-HIV drugs in the late 1990s, which reaped enormous profits for various pharma giants.

[counter]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

Another experimental drug has been tested successfully. Seems to be effective but it's too costly for mass production.

Hmm... too costly for mass production ? That is suspicious. How costly can this get? This is going to be like those anti-HIV drugs in the late 1990s, which reaped enormous profits for various pharma giants.

By saying it is to costly they can basically put a price on human lives in my opinion.  The prescription drug companies basically feel they can play god if it is fiscally good for their bottom line, it sickening.

[bigtimespaghetti]

Did a little looking. So the Ebola virus has killed something like 700 people ever.

It's not airborne, it is so deadly that it is self limiting anyway, as by the time people are infectious they are essentially bed ridden. The reason that it spreads so much in Africa is partly due to the fact that the bodies of dead people are washed by the family in some cases.

Why the fuss? Unless of course it is airborne then we are screwed.

[bigtimespaghetti]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

Another experimental drug has been tested successfully. Seems to be effective but it's too costly for mass production.

Hmm... too costly for mass production ? That is suspicious. How costly can this get? This is going to be like those anti-HIV drugs in the late 1990s, which reaped enormous profits for various pharma giants.

By saying it is to costly they can basically put a price on human lives in my opinion.  The prescription drug companies basically feel they can play god if it is fiscally good for their bottom line, it sickening.

I completely get where you're coming from, in my opinion it's not about playing god- it's about where limited resources can be applied productively. Blasting through a balance sheet because 'human life is priceless' serves no purpose other than to balm the conscience of people (and destroy productivity), who are mostly doing nothing to better the world and are content to point at symptoms (corporations) and not causes (government interference). Dictating what others should do is most of what's wrong with western culture today.

The prescription drug companies are working in their best interests. They can profit from regulatory capture and become rent seekers (treatment providers) rather than problem solvers (cures). Not to mention ebola probably isn't high on the list of diseases to be overcome (isolation is the best containment of ebola outbreak, perhaps 3rd world countries could do some of that?).

There is a price on human life- that's nature. I don't like it either, but this is the world, we all need to eat, to have shelter, nothing is free. More important things get more funding, like cancer for instance. Or doesn't even need to be 'more important' by any standard, whatever shit is fashionable right now may get more funding- take that tsunami in Japan, people gave because they cared, the country did not necessarily need the money though.

It sucks that people are dying, but it's a fraction of those who die from flu every year. Do you see where dictated moral standards can lead?

[Swordsoffreedom]

The main concern is to nip it in the bud before it becomes more serious
Ebola is historically a very nasty disease probably why all the concerns about it
My question is what type of career is path is a panel of medical ethicists

The WHO has begun a special two-day meeting in Geneva to discuss whether to declare an international emergency over the Ebola outbreak, which would trigger new measures to treat the victims and impose travel restrictions.

It also announced that a panel of ethicists will meet next week to consider the sensitive question of whether experimental drugs should be given to Ebola patients in Africa.

“We need to ask the medical ethicists to give us guidance on what the responsible thing to do is,” said a statement by Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general of the WHO.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/ebola/article19928534/

[Balthazar]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

Another experimental drug has been tested successfully. Seems to be effective but it's too costly for mass production.

Hmm... too costly for mass production ? That is suspicious. How costly can this get? This is going to be like those anti-HIV drugs in the late 1990s, which reaped enormous profits for various pharma giants.

Any serum like that couldn't be used for mass production because it has no capability of self-reproduction. You can produce enough serum for 100 or 1000 people but it's impossible to do the same for million or billion. It's a fundamental problem, but not a result of some plot, so it's better to turn off a paranoid mode.

Only live attenuated vaccine production could be scalable&cheap enough to supply anybody with it. There are few live attenuated vaccines exist and proven to be effective on animals, but not tested on humans yet. Not tested due to possible danger, because such vaccines are based on attenuated strain of alive & active pathogen. These vaccines are potentially able to cause ebola desease if immune system is too weak, that's why not so many researchers wish to try it on themselves.

BTW, developer of live attenuated polio vaccine tested it on himself and own childrens to prove its safety.

[bryant.coleman]

By saying it is to costly they can basically put a price on human lives in my opinion.  The prescription drug companies basically feel they can play god if it is fiscally good for their bottom line, it sickening.

Pharma companies nowadays are headed by crooks and criminals. One of my Indian friends once told me about what happened there. In India every year some 10,000+ people die of rabies, after getting bitten by stray dogs. Earlier the municipal authorities used to cull the dogs and thereby control their population. But when the culling got out of control, the profits of the pharma company which produces the rabies vaccination nosedived. They hired some animal rights groups and moved the court against the culling of stray dogs. Now no one can touch any stray dog in India and tens of thousands of people are getting killed as a result.

Meanwhile, the pharma company's market cap has increased by almost 16 times in the past 5 years. 

[kuusj98]

Just a quick question, if you catch the disease, are you guaranteed to die within x days/years or can you also lose the virus?

[Balthazar]

Just a quick question, if you catch the disease, are you guaranteed to die within x days/years or can you also lose the virus?

It's not guaranteed, of course. You can survive even without any treatment. Even if you were infected with highly virulent strain of virus, which is unlikely if you don't like to eat monkeys.

There is about 95% probability to die, if you were infected directly from a wild animal and didn't received any treatment. Rehydratation and other measures of supporting therapy are able to decrease this probability to 40-50%.

[Daniel91]

It will be great if local African people will have the same medical treatment and help like this 2 Americans send back to USA.
Now, they will have greater chance to survive but what about this pure people from Africa, without money and hope, and without American passport?

[Snail2]

By saying it is to costly they can basically put a price on human lives in my opinion.  The prescription drug companies basically feel they can play god if it is fiscally good for their bottom line, it sickening.

In this case costly means difficult. Zmapp isn't a vaccine (with live or dead viruses) what will/should prevent ebola but a mix of antibodies to reinforce the immune system during an ongoing infection. Breeding viruses is easy. Making antibodies is much more difficult and time consuming, especially in the case of an experimental stuff without an established manufacturing process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp

[RedDiamond]

By saying it is to costly they can basically put a price on human lives in my opinion.  The prescription drug companies basically feel they can play god if it is fiscally good for their bottom line, it sickening.

In this case costly means difficult. Zmapp isn't a vaccine (with live or dead viruses) what will/should prevent ebola but a mix of antibodies to reinforce the immune system during an ongoing infection. Breeding viruses is easy. Making antibodies is much more difficult and time consuming, especially in the case of an experimental stuff without an established manufacturing process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZMapp

"ZMapp instead consists of antibodies that are made by exposing mice to a key Ebola protein and harvesting their antibodies. Those antibodies are then genetically modified to make them more like human antibodies and therefore less likely to provoke an immune reaction if injected into people."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/07/business/an-obscure-biotech-firm-hurries-ebola-treatment.html

[countryfree]

"ZMapp instead consists of antibodies that are made by exposing mice to a key Ebola protein and harvesting their antibodies. Those antibodies are then genetically modified to make them more like human antibodies and therefore less likely to provoke an immune reaction if injected into people."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/07/business/an-obscure-biotech-firm-hurries-ebola-treatment.html

Thanks for this excellent article, I understand mass production would require a very large organization, and also some chance, as the technology is so new and unproven.