World Health Organization: Latest Ebola Outbreak Moving Too Fast to Control

BiscuitTrouser

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May 19, 2008
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Strazdas said:
Could you tell more about this mechanism? as far as i was aware HIV was just mutating too fast for any potential vaccine to be distributed before it becomes obsolete.
Well HIV is a retro virus, simply destroying every virus in an infected persons body is not enough since the virus literally inserts its own DNA into our DNA using a protein called reverse transcriptase. This means that even if you had zero HIV virus's left in your body, every surviving cell that once DID has the potential to encode more virus's and unless you kept taking the drugs extremely regularly youre still a potential risk for AIDS should the viral count become too high. You can functionally be free of HIV if you do wipe out almost every virus through the extensive use of expensive anti viral cocktails and then continue to eradicate every new virus your "infected" DNA produces (Magic johnson is a good example of someone who has managed to reach this quasi-ideal stage) but for all intents and purposes you still have HIV.

What new research does is use enzymes to cut out the HIV DNA sequence from our DNA as well as simply destroying functional virus's. You have to attack both avenues at once VERY VERY hard. Leaving a single virus OR a single strand of infected DNA is more risk since either one can create the other. This coupled with the mutation rate means vaccination is horrifically hard and cures are even harder. Success can be found in newborn babies where the virus has yet to infect the DNA of many cells at all, which is why the recent HIV cure examples are newborns who have been hit with anti viral drugs immediately after birth to prevent the vicious cycle of DNA>VIRUS>DNA from starting up at all. Adult sufferers have a far more comprehensive infection assuming they dont immediately know from the second they are infected which is quite unlikely.

Ebola is not, as far as i know, a retrovirus. If you destroy every Ebola virus in a persons body they are clean 100% and should suffer no more infection unless reintroduced to ebola from a second source.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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BiscuitTrouser said:
Strazdas said:
Could you tell more about this mechanism? as far as i was aware HIV was just mutating too fast for any potential vaccine to be distributed before it becomes obsolete.
Well HIV is a retro virus, simply destroying every virus in an infected persons body is not enough since the virus literally inserts its own DNA into our DNA using a protein called reverse transcriptase. This means that even if you had zero HIV virus's left in your body, every surviving cell that once DID has the potential to encode more virus's and unless you kept taking the drugs extremely regularly youre still a potential risk for AIDS should the viral count become too high. You can functionally be free of HIV if you do wipe out almost every virus through the extensive use of expensive anti viral cocktails and then continue to eradicate every new virus your "infected" DNA produces (Magic johnson is a good example of someone who has managed to reach this quasi-ideal stage) but for all intents and purposes you still have AIDS.

What new research does is use enzymes to cut out the HIV DNA sequence from our DNA as well as simply destroying functional virus's. You have to attack both avenues at once VERY VERY hard. Leaving a single virus OR a single strand of infected DNA is more risk since either one can create the other. This coupled with the mutation rate means vaccination is horrifically hard and cures are even harder. Success can be found in newborn babies where the virus has yet to infect the DNA of many cells at all, which is why the recent HIV cure examples are newborns who have been hit with anti viral drugs immediately after birth to prevent the vicious cycle of DNA>VIRUS>DNA from starting up at all. Adult sufferers have a far more comprehensive infection assuming they dont immediately know from the second they are infected which is quite unlikely.

Ebola is not, as far as i know, a retrovirus. If you destroy every Ebola virus in a persons body they are clean 100% and should suffer no more infection unless reintroduced to ebola from a second source.
i see. thanks for explaining. i didnt knew HIV alters our DNA in such case. This is why i love these forums, i often feeel like the person knowing the least instead of the only adult among children like in youtube comments.
 

sXeth

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Yeah, this is a headline grabber, and certainly sucks for the affected region/people, but is unlikely to break much farther out then it has, with a near brick-wall once you hit first-world areas with better control factors.

700 people is also pretty low for disease mortality, influenza and malaria in the same conditions easily smash that number underfoot in a year.
 

Th37thTrump3t

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Nov 12, 2009
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People are getting worked up over nothing. What people seem to forget is that this virus is not airborne and spreads through contact with bodily fluids. So basically unless you live in a 3rd world country where hygiene is not a priority or you deal with bodily fluids for a living, you are not very likely to catch it if likely at all.
 

CaitSeith

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MASTACHIEFPWN said:
There is a multitude of reasons that Ebola doesn't spread to developed countries. Most every developed country has quarantine stations in every major port of entry, and you can only spread the disease if you are symptomatic, and it is pretty clear that you are symptomatic when it is effecting you. In this outbreak, the vast majority of people who have contracted the disease have been family members of those infected and healthcare workers. Basic sanitary procedures of developed nations also makes it more difficult for it to spread.
Well, they brought sick people to the USA hospital, so now those reasons are going to be put to test. I'm a little more worried about the social reaction (and overreaction) than the disease itself.
 

MASTACHIEFPWN

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Mar 27, 2010
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CaitSeith said:
MASTACHIEFPWN said:
There is a multitude of reasons that Ebola doesn't spread to developed countries. Most every developed country has quarantine stations in every major port of entry, and you can only spread the disease if you are symptomatic, and it is pretty clear that you are symptomatic when it is effecting you. In this outbreak, the vast majority of people who have contracted the disease have been family members of those infected and healthcare workers. Basic sanitary procedures of developed nations also makes it more difficult for it to spread.
Well, they brought sick people to the USA hospital, so now those reasons are going to be put to test. I'm a little more worried about the social reaction (and overreaction) than the disease itself.
But that doesn't mean that the healthcare workers don't know how to take care of them. In the area that they are being treated, it is more than likely that extreme precautions will be taken when caring for the infected, and its more than likely they only people coming into contact with them will be qualified professionals who know what to do if they do happen to get infected. Another thing that causes the spread of Ebola in Africa is the burial rituals of many communities where it hits. Ebola can still infect someone after the host has died, and if people don't know what killed them exactly, then the disease is much more likely to spread. The sanitary procedures of the developed world will likely hinder the disease's ability to spread.

The final thing that catches my eye about this disease is that there are confirmed cases of it in the capitals of Guinea and Liberia, and it has only infected a few hundred people in both of those countries. (Both of those cities have well over a million people living in them)
 

ultratog1028

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Mar 19, 2010
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Doesn't this happen with every Ebola Outbreak? It comes suddenly, kills most of the people it infects, and can't infect anymore because all the carriers died. And it stays that way until the next outbreak occurs.
 

go-10

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-Ezio- said:
uuh. apocalypse anyone?
I would argue the end of the humans will be brought on by humans themselves, either destroying the environment beyond repair during our lifetime or nuking ourselves to death

although 900+ people dying from ebola is a big number it's nowhere near 70% of the population in Europe that the Black Plague killed. So I think we're good, let's worry when it reaches numbers like the influenza which killed around 75,000,000 people worldwide in 3 years
 

-Ezio-

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Nov 17, 2009
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GZGoten said:
-Ezio- said:
uuh. apocalypse anyone?
I would argue the end of the humans will be brought on by humans themselves, either destroying the environment beyond repair during our lifetime or nuking ourselves to death

although 900+ people dying from ebola is a big number it's nowhere near 70% of the population in Europe that the Black Plague killed. So I think we're good, let's worry when it reaches numbers like the influenza which killed around 75,000,000 people worldwide in 3 years
you must be fun at parties.
 

Vicarious Reality

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Just another reason to stay away from the public
I should build a space suit so i will neither have to hear nor touch anything outside
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

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Aug 5, 2009
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If this gets insane and spreads everywhere, I'm going to Greenland. Come on medical community, don't make me lose total faith in you!
 

mavkiel

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Adam Jensen said:
AstaresPanda said:
And America brings back 2 ppl to treat them. Not to be a dick but thats a pretty dam high risk.
Not really. Two people can be easily managed. The risk factor comes down almost entirely to competence of the people that are treating them. As long as they do everything by the book, and they don't have a reason not to, it will be fine.
Yes, its not like folks get exposed to anthrax or leave small pox vials laying around, because we have protocols against stuff like that..

While its admirable that the doctors went outside the country to help folks with Ebola, I find it far less so that they expect to bring it back here.
 

Denamic

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Do remember this is in places with terrible everything and people who tries to heal themselves and others with prayer.