Ebola can be spread through the droplets of a cough or sneeze.

he was coughing at the time he was dying

Most aerosolized droplets are not respiratory fluids, they come from projectile vomiting late in the disease. Mr. Duncan was able to get to the toilet in time and that's why his family didn't get sick. They don't have flush toilets in most houses in Liberia, so their families get sick.

You can't get sick from any person who is not showing symptoms.

like "may" and "might" and "could."

Try focusing on what is for a change.

Perhaps you could climb off your high horse long enough to tell me which "weasel words" I employed that inaccurately represent what is contained at the link.

I wrote --



can
kan/
verb
modal verb: can

1.
be able to.
"they can run fast"

But hey, it didn't happen in Mr. Duncan's case so it can't happen, right?

but go on and set your hair on fire,duct tape your windows , wear a garbage bag with your goggles

I did not expect this kind of over-reaction from relatively educated people.

Frankly, it's depressing....and the original article states what is and isn't contagious.

has gotten sick in the 4 decades they've been treating Ebola until very recently? Sanitary conditions and cultural practices in Africa are very different than they are here. It's not common practice here for family members to care for patients in the hospital to the extent they do in Africa, nor is it common here to wash the corpse of the dead like in Africa. I am also disappointed in the hair-on-fire reaction of the American public, but it makes sense because a fearful population is an easily-controlled population, and that's just how the baggers want us.

Previous outbreaks were in remote areas of Africa. Therefore very small. They burned themselves out.

Ebola hasn't changed, according to research I've seen.

Here is a lecture I watched recently. I still am not worried about it here.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5685607

according to a Canadian study where they infected macaques. Perhaps that is the reason for the change? I am not worried about it here but I am really concerned that enough people will not volunteer and that it will become endemic over there.

corpses are handled in the affected African countries.

Would you be willing to take that risk with yourself or your family?

I wouldn't and I hope someone wouldn't intentionally do something that would put me or my family in that situation.

Hell, I feel that way when my SIL brings her 5 vomiting, 102-degree temp running, plain old stomach bug-laden munchkins to family dinner! She says "It's only the stomach bug that's going around. It'll be gone in a few days even if you do catch it." For our 81yo father, it may not end up as 'just a stomach bug'. For all the parents there, it might be a few days off work -- paid or unpaid depending on what they do. For the kids, missing a field trip at school or having to retake a test and make up work.

Our facilities aren't overwhelmed, and we have sufficient high quality facilities to deal with very small numbers.

We also have had a few serum donors, who contributed to our good outcomes. The number of cases wouldn't need to get much larger to quickly out pace such donation

here has survived - mr duncan would have survived if he wasnt brushed aside for lacking insurance

from a Dr who had survived Ebola. I'm not sure if the two nurses received any antiserum

The number of such survivors is limited (although each survivor builds that pool) and if the number of cases was much bigger availability couldn't keep up.

I believe Dr. Brantly donated to both of them.

between the treatment for an average person in west Africa and in the US.

I hope and expect the US cases will remain small and that availability of limited resources continues to meet demand

We had very few patients treated in the best hospitals.
I have no doubt that if we were to get a lot of patients, our survival rate would go downhill.

and whole families aren't crammed into one room houses with dirt floors and no sanitation.

Viruses know no borders, but contagion in the US will be limited by our sanitation infrastructure.

Where this disease will be the worst is likely India. I hope it doesn't travel there.

It's also true that in the US people who are seriously sick seek help. If you suspected someone you knew had Ebola that seems even more likely.

In most American homes there is a thermometer of one type or another for body temp. The onset of a 103 fever would take many people, perhaps most people with a known or suspected exposure to a person with Ebola to urgent care prior to the onset of vomiting and diarrhea, which is to say, prior to a time when the risk to spreading the infection is greatest.

from Dr. Brantly.

Writebol also offered to donate to Vinson, but it was decided that she didn't need additional plasma. I'm happy to see Writebol as recovered to the point that she is able to donate.

I didn't know she had donated to Dr. Spencer. Happy she is doing so much better...

and for various reasons which may have included frailty of health before infection, genetics, or environmental factors. Not every person in the nations affected in Africa gets ill with this disease either. And people survive it too. It is not unlike people being exposed to the flu. Some may get very ill with an influenza, others only mildy ill, and still others may not get ill at all. I think we need to learn more about ebola because I don't think that everything is understood about it. If we did have full knowledge of it, there would be a vaccine and a cure for it.

Anecdotal evidence of a handful of cases doesn't mean anything.

and it's not so anecdotal since we have doctors to tell us that they are ebola negative.

Duncan's family was very lucky.

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/179/Supplement_1/S87.full

The surviving members of 27 households in which someone had been infected with Ebola virus were interviewed in order to define the modes of transmission of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF). Of 173 household contacts of the primary cases, 28 (16%) developed EHF. All secondary cases had direct physical contact with the ill person (rate ratio [RR], undefined; P < .001), and among those with direct contact, exposure to body fluids conferred additional risk (RR, 3.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.9–6.8).

If I go out I might get bengaz.....I mean Ebola !!!

That'll teach me to flick classes.

i think he is on facebook under rocky mountain mike -

if you cant then i cant help you

There would have to be enough viral load in a person's system.

This is a PANIC situation !!1!!

Yes, it can be spread through droplets IF those droplets make it into the mouth, nose or eyes of someone else.

In other words, if you haven't been caring for a person who is ill and if you are wearing protective gear, it's unlikely that you will catch it.

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The info sheet specifically says that Ebola is not transmitted via an airborne route. The droplets would have to land at very close range and directly onto a mucus membrane.

Note to all Panic Platoon members: Contact the burn unit to get treatment for those scalp burns.

Ludicrous.

Why are there so many science deniers and fear lovers at DU?

Pretty damned deadly, too, in its way.

the new CDC guidance on risk says droplet transmission is low risk when outside of 3 feet

who has enough viral load to transmit it in such a way is really ill.

(And, btw, in medical parlance, the only person who can see 'symptoms' is the person with the illness. 'Signs' are the objective, observable, and measurable effects that caregivers can see, 'symptoms' are the subjective feelings that only the sick person knows. This is why doctors and nurses ask you what your symptoms are - they have no way to know your symptoms, but they can observe and measure the 'signs' of your problem. If you're in pain, you can experience the symptom of pain, while your caregiver might notice signs indicating that you're in pain, such as you groaning or grimacing. Everybody keeps talking about 'symptomatic' patients, but only the patient themselves can tell if they're 'symptomatic'. High temperatures, emesis, etc, are 'signs'.)

But those drops would have to encounter a wound or other receptive site on the body. Influenza actually is spread with every breath we exhale and inhale. Has nothing to do with "drops", which don't travel through the air very far before landing on the floor because of their weight.

And of course they would have had to be in a stage where they are shedding viruses. Ebola patients in that stage are not walking around sneezing on people.

How did you get from there to "the only way to get Ebola is to have someone sneeze into your eyes." Confused much?

I wonder why it bothers some DUers so much? Doesn't public safety, like democracy itself, require knowledge?

The CDC doc linked makes it plain that actual contact with bodily fluids is STILL required to catch Ebola.

This is old information, rephrased and incomplete. Gives a mistaken impression. OP needs detail added.

Having worked in a hospital, I was sneezed on, on occassion.

Having ridden public transportation, I was sneezed on a lot.

That's why I cover my mouth when I sneeze.

I wonder how many people don't? A lot, I've seen.

And am likewise cautious. More people should cover up and use other basic precautions like you do.

Flu is a good example of a serious and deadly disease that is transmitted by air when someone sneezes. Ebola is not: it requires actual droplet-membrane contact.

FYI

information page from the CDC makes it sound as if Ebola is spread as easily as a cold or the flu. Here's another CDC page which makes it a bit more clear just how you get Ebola: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/infographic.pdf

In the end, you can only get Ebola if you have the misfortune to be in fairly close contact with a very sick, symptomatic patient. Isn't ANYBODY out there paying any attention to the fact that none of Duncan's housemates got sick? Or that none of the patients or medical staff in the ER where he twice went while symptomatic got sick?

Ebola concentrates in the lungs. When it was first talked about in the news, years ago, it was often described by how it caused the lungs to hemorrhage.

something mainly the flu. But the again I'd worry about pertussis, so far its killing more than ebola.

but people are all worried about ebola and can't be bothered to get a flu shot.

From:
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/10/reality-check-how-catch-ebola

A question/answer session with an actual Ebola expert. Dr. Elka Muhlberger. I recommend reading the whole thing before posting panicked bits and pieces of hysteria.

Some people are claiming that to infect so many people, the virus must have moved from just bodily fluids to “airborne”…

I think there’s some confusion here. We know that some viruses — like influenza virus, and measles — are transmitted before the patient shows symptoms. Especially the measles virus, which is the winner in terms of being contagious. What these viruses do is infect the respiratory tract — that is their first target organ. That’s how they start the infection, and then they replicate or amplify themselves in cells of the upper respiratory tract. And then when we breathe, we release these viruses because they’re part of our ‘breathing air.’ There are tiny, tiny, tiny little droplets, and these droplets contain the virus. They can stretch pretty far, like a couple of feet. And that is what we call an airborne infection. If we breathe and then we shed virus with our breath.

So you don’t even need visible droplets, it’s just air?

They’re tiny little droplets in our breath. And these viral particles are part of it. This is completely different from Ebola virus. First of all, Ebola virus does not begin an infection by infecting our upper respiratory tract. The route of infection starts with little lesions in our skin, and then the virus gets in our skin, and then in our blood system, and then in these immune cells I mentioned before, which are the primary target cells. It’s also able to get into our eyes and mucosal membranes, but it does not infect the cells which we need to get infected to have an infection be airborne. Late in the infection, when the Ebola virus patients have very high viral loads, they are really really ill, way too ill to get on a train and sit there.

So you’re saying that when they’re so ill that it could be in the respiratory system, they’re super-ill, not able to go anywhere?

Exactly. The cells in the lung can be infected by Ebola virus but really late in the infection. That’s very important. As far as we know, the infection starts with the immune cells — for those who know a little more about the immune system, it’s dendritic cells and macrophages. Then it goes to lymph nodes. Then very quickly to the liver, and there it goes crazy. The liver is very crucial in Ebola virus infections because it is so heavily affected. Ebola virus also spreads to the spleen, to other organs, and then later in infection it tends to infect the cells that coat the blood vessels, and of course we have these cells in the lung as well.

So when we are infected with Ebola virus and we are really sick, then we spread the virus through all our body fluids, which includes blood, sputum, feces urine, breast milk and semen. Again, then we have Ebola virus in little droplets, which is the reason we talk about infection via droplets, but these droplets are much bigger — though they are tiny, of course — but these are much bigger than the droplets which cause aerosol-borne disease. So it’s a matter of size. And if they are bigger they cannot be transmitted over a large distance.

entire immune system is broken down.

Airborne means that the virus can continue to travel in the air for a period of time after leaving the host.

In advance stages of Ebola, all the fluid coming out of an infected patient is teaming with Ebola virus which would include blood, puke, tears, sweat, urine, feces and yes phlegm from coughing and/or sneezing.

The link even says that Ebola is not airborne.

when the virus is taking over all the systems, as opposed to early on when it is concentrated in blood and liver.

Would somebody please let me know when the ebola zombie apocalypse is over?

you are brilliant.

How often do you sneeze or cough if you don't have a respiratory virus?

No! Ebola is not airborne transmissible. And it infects the bloodstream, but not the lungs.

Yet another hair-on-fire Ebola post.

Sheesh!

My husband just read this to me from a football forum he is on. It was from the Drudge report, I also found it on the New York Post.

Lay people interpreting medical information, especially with the intention of causing panic, disruption or paranoia should not be listened to.

This is not news nor is it any different than anything they have said before. It is just being blown into the air like little droplets (sorry, I can't help myself) to cause everyone to panic and not forget we could ALL DIE if we do not elect tough leaders (i.e. those we are not exactly prone to vote for here).

Worry about the flu, really.

link says the person has to be less than 3 feet from you and coughs or sneezes in your face. Good thing Coughing and sneezing are not symptoms of the Ebola.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/symptoms/index.html

•Fever
•Severe headache
•Muscle pain
•Weakness
•Diarrhea
•Vomiting
•Abdominal (stomach) pain
•Unexplained hemorrhage (bleeding or bruising)

in the country at any one time. Meanwhile you could get hit by a car tonight. There is a much better chance of that.

are infected.

Better safe than sorry!

Did you know you can get herpes from a toilet seat?

it's not a respiratory illness. The chances of anyone getting it from someone sneezing is about zero.