[Mezla PigDog]

You called

First off, full disclosure: I'm not a virologist. I'm a molecular biologist with specialism in developing diagnostics tests for infectious disease and have worked on lots of bacteria (MRSA, C.difficile etc) and the viruses causing flu and HIV. Nico - your mutation article references PCR-based diagnostic tests. That's my bag, using DNA and RNA sequences to rapidly identify the causative agent of disease. I recently quit R&D and currently work for a body notified by the UK government to regulate such tests in the EU i.e. to ensure new diagnostic tests are safe to be sold in the European Economic Area. You can decide for yourself if I'm qualified to make expert comment (I think I am )

Nicodimas, on 28 August 2014 - 04:53 PM, said:

Is this the one...please read The Hot Zone! I mean that gamechanging one that goes Pandemic.

http://www.bloomberg...dated-plan.html

Breaking Article Suggests 20,000 Infected with a current Lethality of 50% in this Variant..!!

I wouldn't mind hearing someone with upper level knowledge as it sounds like it can honestly be Spread by a Sneeze, I don't think that makes it "Airborne" ..Correct?

Viral haemorrhagic fevers are spread by contact with bodily fluids. So it is more similar to HIV than flu but unlike HIV is a little more easily transmitted. Most transmissions so far are healthcare transmissions or due to African burial practices where people touch the dead body. For you or I to catch it we would need to touch the bodily fluid of a severely infected person (blood, body fluids, organs) and then transfer that fluid to one of our mucous membranes - mouth, eyes, nose. The first line of defence is washing your hands with soup and water. Flu is way more contagious and a lot less people have had it than they think. On average we each get real influenza once every 10 or 12 years. I travelled on public transport in a major metropolitan area in the UK all through the swine flu outbreak and I haven't had influenza since 2002.

Spread of this infection in a healthcare setting in the west would be zero to rare because we have single-use disposable basic medical equipment such as gowns, masks, gloves, curtains and things like needles and drinking cups. In Africa such items are crudely disinfected and reused. I read an interesting manual produced by the CDC advising African healthcare facilities on infection control CDC manual pdf - it is basic stuff when you have access to lots of disposable equipment and incinerators. You also have to look at how infected US and UK nationals have been brought home without any of the people they had contact with being infected. It's just not that contagious.

Applying some context to the WHO press release about the potential for 20,000 infections before it comes under control - it sounds rather alarmist and unlike the WHO usual tone but they are trying to alarm the international community into mobilising man power and resources to go to Africa and help.

Nicodimas, on 28 August 2014 - 06:15 PM, said:

Quote

The "sick guy with ebola on the plane" scenario doesn't even necessarily mean that the guy's seat-neighbour gets ebola, much less the rest of the passengers.

Ebola always freaks me out, cause it melts your insides ..The hot zone suggests more than once this the Virus turning you into the perfect carrier to infect everyone...

What worries me is the -reports- that this one can spread with no symptoms showing. Though could be cause of the substandard care in that part of the world. That also in my mind makes it the perfect place to create a colossal disaster of a virus.

Ebola doesn't melt your insides. Most people die from dehydration due to vomiting and diarrhoea. It has an incubation period of 2 - 22 days (I think). Yes that makes it more dangerous because someone could wander around for 22 days without showing signs but in this time they would have a low viral load which again makes transmission less likely. So at that time you have a small amount of virus that is hard to transmit. Not really a big deal.

Nicodimas, on 28 August 2014 - 06:35 PM, said:

I wish we had a Virologist here, Clarity is important and it would be neat if we had true scientific data on how a Virus evolves. The timeline and infected rate that makes this *that* bug...

If you find some information on Vaccine Manufacturing that would be great!

Europe and the US have mass vaccination production facilities (run by corporations like Roche, GSK and Astra Zeneca). Once a vaccine is known to work, production volumes would be high after a couple of months.

Nicodimas, on 28 August 2014 - 07:54 PM, said:

http://medicalxpress...s-insights.html

Here is some information from the field^ on mutations.. I would really like some more insightful information on what a "mutation" means in everyday terms.

Quote

The team's catalog of 395 mutations (over 340 that distinguish the current outbreak from previous ones, and over 50 within the West African outbreak) may serve as a starting point for other research groups.

Is this cause for concern..? Or completely normal for a virus.

Cause has the crux of it - this mutation level is entirely normal. The reason people are looking into it is to understand the origin and spread and to look for novel features that could be exploited by diagnostics/drugs/vaccines and not because MUTATIONS BAD ARGHHHHH. Mutations are one of many reasons PCR-based diagnostic tests might give false negatives but that is a routine part of the technology and the institutions/companies that manufacture these tests usually keep abreast of it. People who make diagnostic tests are obliged to report false positive and false negative rates (typically around 1% and 5% respectively) and it is the reason why there are different levels of diagnostic test and why they are used in combination with clinical skill of evaluating exposure risk and symptoms. Usually a primary test will have a higher false positive and negative rate because accuracy has to be sacrificed in order for screening the wider population to be economically viable in terms of cost per test, time taken and laboratory resources required. Then you have secondary and confirmatory tests that follow up and confirm diagnosis. In a public health context, the number of people who receive an incorrect diagnosis is negligible.

We also need to remember that what the public learned about influenza during the swine flu pandemic scare does not apply to ebola. There isn't a virus sink of ebola in the population as there is with flu - there is no melting pot of it in domestic animals and humans living on top of each other so there aren't lots of strains floating around waiting to combine and create super-ebola as is the over-hyped risk with flu.

Ebola is a crisis but it is a local crisis. The west should help from a humanitarian perspective not because it is a risk to us.

[Nicodimas]

Quote

there is no melting pot of it in domestic animals and humans living on top of each other

I am definitely going to do a re-read of Hot Zone. I guess I stated melt your insides as a references to the fact a Filovirus trys to turn all the host cells into it, kind of like AID's, but in a couple weeks..causing some very nasty effects. If you have any suggestions I will read..


There is a ton of Alarmist level articles on this subject, so thank you for your approach. I have been wondering could you explain the danger of Serial Passage. I could be completely wrong here in my understanding, so looking for accurate info.


My understanding:
Ebola has demonstrated the ability to cross species, so -serial passage- on this level would be the ability for it to move from Human to Animal and increase in strength?. Articles are also plainly stating that that part of Africa likes to eat fruit bats ( Bushmeat, etc), I honestly thought the fruitbat statement was made up for the longest time. I guess the question is about the mechanics of Serial Passage- Does this infer that Human to Animal crossing of a Filo-virus makes it more powerful, or virulent? ..If im not mistaken current Theory suggests this is what made Hiv/Aids have its "break" out...

You suggest that the real worry with a virus would be combining?


I understand they are professionals..but wondering the context here.

On this subject also..isn't this another example of serial passage:
http://nypost.com/20...ind-ebola-cure/

Quote

A group of healthy US adults have agreed to be injected with a single protein of the deadly Ebola virus which scientists have paired with a chimpanzee cold virus in an attempt to concoct an experimental vaccine.

Maybe I have read to many science fiction books, but doesn't that seem like a bad idea. I mean not trying to find a vaccine part, but the combination of Viruses?

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 29 August 2014 - 07:18 PM

[Mezla PigDog]

Mezla PigDog, on 29 August 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

The first line of defence is washing your hands with soup and water.

Just spotted this awesome typo. I hope everyone has been stockpiling soup since I posted. I believe chicken soup is the most efficacious against Ebola, while tomato works for flu and Won Ton is particularly potent against SARS-CoV

Nicodimas, on 29 August 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Quote

there is no melting pot of it in domestic animals and humans living on top of each other

I am definitely going to do a re-read of Hot Zone. I guess I stated melt your insides as a references to the fact a Filovirus trys to turn all the host cells into it, kind of like AID's, but in a couple weeks..causing some very nasty effects. If you have any suggestions I will read..

I'm not sure where you have read that any viruses try to turn host cells into it - HIV kills immune cells called T lymphocytes essentially wiping out the hosts immune system so they eventually die of what are typically non-lethal infections in immunocompetent people.

Quote

There is a ton of Alarmist level articles on this subject, so thank you for your approach. I have been wondering could you explain the danger of Serial Passage. I could be completely wrong here in my understanding, so looking for accurate info.


My understanding:
Ebola has demonstrated the ability to cross species, so -serial passage- on this level would be the ability for it to move from Human to Animal and increase in strength?. Articles are also plainly stating that that part of Africa likes to eat fruit bats ( Bushmeat, etc), I honestly thought the fruitbat statement was made up for the longest time. I guess the question is about the mechanics of Serial Passage- Does this infer that Human to Animal crossing of a Filo-virus makes it more powerful, or virulent? ..If im not mistaken current Theory suggests this is what made Hiv/Aids have its "break" out...

You suggest that the real worry with a virus would be combining?

Serial Passage is the name of a laboratory technique, not natural virus behaviour. Wikipedia explains the true definition very well - Serial Passage. I did my PhD in a lab shared with some people studying similar stuff. It is basically a statistics game - if you give a virus all of the ingredients and the correct enviroment it requires to jump species (and by extension become more virulent by the simple measure of being able to infect human cells) then how many generations will it take before it does just that? On the one hand it is a sound scientific model but on the other hand it is an artificial environment created to increase the likelihood of worst case scenario. If you think of the things that must come together in order to create that perfect storm in the real world then it is very unlikely and I have proof - the fact that we are still here as a species!! Viral/human co-evolution has happened in this way for so long as we have all existed.and we are still here. New viruses do and always have been those that jump the species barrier - HIV came from SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), various influenza viruses have come from birds and swine (even whales and otters have their own version of flu) and Ebola has come from fruit bats due to eating bush meat. It's important not to be alarmist about this stuff as it has always been this way. On the plus side as a species we must be eating a lot less bush meat than we did 100 years ago and we are still here.

Quote

On this subject also..isn't this another example of serial passage:
http://nypost.com/20...ind-ebola-cure/

Quote

A group of healthy US adults have agreed to be injected with a single protein of the deadly Ebola virus which scientists have paired with a chimpanzee cold virus in an attempt to concoct an experimental vaccine.

Maybe I have read to many science fiction books, but doesn't that seem like a bad idea. I mean not trying to find a vaccine part, but the combination of Viruses?

The link you provide is unreferenced which leads me to believe that it is total bollocks. The scientific methodology alone leads me to think that it wouldn't lead to any useful results. It is illegal to experiment on humans in that way.in any of the worlds countries that have the infrastructure to exploit any useful results anyway. Typical vaccine development use antibodies raised in rabbits or mice that have been engineered to have immune systems similar to humans; there is no reason that Ebola would be different.

As for reading materials, I'm afraid I don't have anything to offer. If you are looking for facts I would avoid unreferenced articles online, look to reputable news sources and editorials in scientific publications like The Lancet, Nature and New Scientist. For example: The Lancet Infectious Diseases. In general, primary output from the CDC, WHO and national governments really is trustworthy in these kind of situations, popular news outlets are not.

[Nicodimas]

Quote

The link you provide is unreferenced which leads me to believe that it is total bollock

Good to know! I will be more careful in the future.

[Cause]

Viruses don't turn the cells they come in contact with into themselves. A virus is like a rogue fragment of DNA/RNA only it lacks all the machinery it needs to reproduce on its own. A virus is technically not alive until it infects a host. Once it does that it inserts its own DNA/RNA into the host and uses the hosts own machinery to replicate. It also essentially removes any of the hosts safety protocols so often the virus replicates in the host cell until the cell literally bursts from the inside from the pressure releasing a large viral load into the host to infect more cells. I think its is where you get the idea that it liquefies your insides. eventually the virus numbers become so overwhelming that the hosts bodily fluids or even their breath carries the virus and the infection grows. The irony of a virus is that if it kills its host to quickly the virus infection will burn out, if it kills the host too slowly its chances to spread are limited.

An analogy that I have found helps people is to imagine a computer virus, its amazing how apt the comparison can be. A biological virus is essentially just software (DNA/RNA code) without hardware (it lacks the enzymes it needs to read and translate its DNA/RNA code into proteins-DNA is the blueprints and protein are the actual tools of life). Similar to a Computer Virus it infects a computer (a human) and it uses that computers hardware to make its code functional and help it infect other computers. Now as for those mutations, unlike a computer virus that is designed a biological virus is just randomly having changes made to its code, a letter being substituted, deleted or inserted somewhere in its code. Some do nothing, a great many will kill the viability of the virus and won't propagate and never be seen. In a one and a million chance enough of these random changes could make a super virus but its highly unlikely.

Now if we look at two famous virus we can examine the cause and importance of mutations. Please keep in mind that all analogies are prone to inaccuracies but the main points I think are salient.

Hiv:
The HI virus is extremely prone to mutation and as such as proven to be very difficult to cure. HIV literally as an evolutionary survival tactic purposefully makes sure that its code its replicated poorly with many errors. Its always changing and this makes it hard for drugs to target. You have to keep updating Norton so it knows how to look for a PC virus that is changing and we have to keep making changes to the drugs. There is some good news though. Their is a trade off between the Virus being able to do its job, its ability to mutate to evade a cure and for it to remain stable enough that it can survive. A lot of research is going into making drugs that are able to recognize and target those parts of the virus that cant mutate without the HI Virus no longer being HIV. For the most part this is the kind of mutations viruses have. We are talking more about Virus 2.0.3 as opposed to Virus 3.0 coming out.

Influenza:
For Influenza imagine an entire family of related computer virus. One was designed to in fact Macs (Pigs), another for Windows (humans) and one that targets android phones (birds). Lets say your PC has been hanging out on a part of the internet that is dirty (porn) and it comes home with the PC windows virus and the android phone virus. The one is tailor made to infect your computer and the other sits almost harmlessly as a file on your hard-drive. As the PC virus infects your PC though it scans your HDD and sees the android virus. It randomly creates a new file that is some parts its own PC virus code and some parts the android virus. Many of these wont be viable but eventually you will have a virus that can infect both PCs and phones and has the strengths and weakness of both Viruses. Its still at the end of the day a Flu virus only know its has new novel exploits and last years Norton won't be able to stop it.

Another things that should be considered is that if say the Black Death struck the earth today we probably in all likelihood won't suffer anything like 50% casualties. Today we have better access to nutrition, our bodies are stronger, our understanding of virus transmission and medicine is far stronger. Its also entirely possible, though I admit I have read nothing yet that has made mention of it that the prevalence of HIV in Africa is coupling with this pandemic to make it so serious.

[Tsundoku]

Good(ish) news?

http://www.bbc.com/n...health-28980153

[Cause]

Sombra, on 29 August 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

Good(ish) news?

http://www.bbc.com/n...health-28980153

Its good news yes, however, it is also frightening how many things we can cure in animals but will never make it past human testing or even to human testing. Sometimes the chemistry won't be the same, sometimes its hard to justify rewriting or silencing DNA in a human where we won't worry about doing it a mouse etc.

[D'iversify]

Cause, on 29 August 2014 - 10:18 PM, said:

Another things that should be considered is that if say the Black Death struck the earth today we probably in all likelihood won't suffer anything like 50% casualties. Today we have better access to nutrition, our bodies are stronger, our understanding of virus transmission and medicine is far stronger. Its also entirely possible, though I admit I have read nothing yet that has made mention of it that the prevalence of HIV in Africa is coupling with this pandemic to make it so serious.

I'd add to this that one of the causes of the extent of the Black Death's mortality rates was not only the lack of modern medicine but also the fact that it followed on from the Great Famine of 1315-17, which meant that many people alive in the 1340s had compromised immunity due to either experiencing famine as a child or else being the children of famine sufferers. This famine was moreover a consequence of Europe's population exceeding the resources it needed to support it, meaning many people continued to be undernourished in the years leading up to the arrival of the plague.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Seems folks right at home are pretty jittery about Ebola. There was a several-hours lockdown at a hotel when a lady was found sick and it was known she was recently traveling in Africa.

Saint John is only about an hour from Fredericton, where I live.

My kneejerk reaction was "wow massive overreaction guys". After my knee fell back to its usual spot however, I realized this is exactly why ebola would have such a hard time spreading here. The fact that we are *able* to learn, trigger a preplanned response and react to the situation so quickly. It's a good thing thing! They said on the radio this morning that the lockdown procedure was developed 10 years ago and this is the first time they've actually had to use it. Comforting to know a plan is in place for sure!

http://www.theglobea...rticle20463494/


TL;DR if you don't want to view the link: Canadian hotel houses sick lady that recently traveled in Africa. City places the hotel on lockdown and isolates the lady. She didn't have ebola and the lockdown is lifted.

[Nicodimas]

Bleach!

It looks like the first case is confirmed in the states, In Texas...*Dallas Airport then..

Left Liberia 9/19
Arrived in Texas 9/20
Sick on 9/26
Isolated 9/28

The good thing is it looks like the CDC has found everyone he made primary contact with. My buddy is a Nurse over in Houston he is stating some panic with them at the hospital level today. If you read the Hot Zone i would be tripping too, of course I view the guy arriving with a full scale Hemorragic fever and getting his Body Substances everywhere...


How much Body Substance would you have to come into contact with..to get sick.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 30 September 2014 - 11:10 PM

[cerveza_fiesta]

If you type that into google news, you get an array of sources reporting more or less the same thing in varying levels of detail, so it's important to read a few articles I think.

In particular, the fellow was not symptomatic when he boarded the plane (he *was* actually screened and did not show any symptoms according to a couple articles), and therefore it is thought that he did not transmit anything to other passengers on the plane. Since being in the US, he mostly hung around with family and didn't range very far. CDC cast the net wide and has gotten a hold of everyone he might have had primary contact with since arriving in N. America.

So yes, definitely worrying, but given that they screened him and he was asymptomatic, I don't know if there's much more that could have been done at that stage other than quarantining him for 2 weeks prior to his flight (makes me wonder if they'll start doing that now). The response since is huge and appropriate to minimizing the risk of it spreading beyond the dude's family.

In this case, a bit of public hysteria might pay off too. They caught it in time and and everyone is now scared to death of touching anything, and they're virtually guaranteed to see their doctor at the slightest tickle in their throat. That's exactly what you want people to be doing.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 01 October 2014 - 12:18 AM

[McLovin]

So it's popped up in Dallas.

I for one welcome our new viral overlords.

[Gnaw]

I've been a much more content person since I stopped paying attention to the 'news'. So what's the latest on how this is Obama's fault?

[Obdigore]

Gnaw, on 02 October 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

I've been a much more content person since I stopped paying attention to the 'news'. So what's the latest on how this is Obama's fault?

Obama isn't strong enough on viral pathogens. We should send the Marines in!

[Nicodimas]

@ Mezla.

I was reading that if someone infected with Ebola got on a cruise ship this would create the perfect way for it to spread??


(In other news..we should definitely ban Ebola from going on Cruises...)

In other news...

http://nairalandnews...y-ebola-photos/

[D'iversify]

Obdigore, on 02 October 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

Obama isn't strong enough on viral pathogens. We should send the Marines in!

You peaceniks sicken me! Orbital nuclear strike or nothing!

[Nicodimas]

Quote

Obama isn't strong enough on viral pathogens

Seriously..
Obama's Foreign Policy on Viral Pathogens is lacking..he may be judged through history eyes...

He should have:
1) Not allowed travel back from said countries.
2) Sent US peacekeepers to set up US bases to contain and isolate (sorry with Nato support)
3) found and destroyed ebola..


NEWS!!-->
Also we learned that this Texas guy was volunteering in the effort to Eradicate Ebola..thats great! You would think he since since he volunteered to be around it would have taken time before returning home to his family. His Partner and Nephews are now on forceful armed guard lockdown. The good thing is those five childrens schools are being scrubbed down.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 02 October 2014 - 07:47 PM

[Nicodimas]

Interesting news:

The Dallas guy was chased outside and to the hospital <brings up a interesting image> as he couldn't stop puking.

Can't this Aerosol the Virus?


PROOF here
http://news.yahoo.co...1--finance.html

I have read the CDC have identified now *80* people he came into contact with. Though still glad more so they are scrubbing down the schools..that would be the perfect way to spread as kids are gross..

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 02 October 2014 - 08:15 PM

[Gnaw]

Nicodimas. One of us is seriously not getting the concept of sarcasm.

 nico screen.png (18.87K)
Number of downloads: 0

[Nicodimas]

http://www.dailymail...wing-place.html

He flew from*Liberia* to *Brussels* to *Washington* to *Texas*. This really gets you thinking someday when something is Airborne and deadly..we won't even see it.

Quote

He said: 'One kid was telling everyone that somebody had Ebola in school but nobody believed him. We said that Ebola was something that happens in Africa'
'We were all joking about it and touching each other and saying you have Ebola.

Woops--^ this just proves my point on kids...

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 03 October 2014 - 12:01 AM