Bleeding out your insides
One of the reasons I've been slacking on science news is because I know I should write about Ebola and that's not a fun subject. I started this back in July but then got distracted by my own diarrhoea problems and thinking about the version with your own liquidated organs coming out wasn't especially appealing. I've been avoiding it since - hoping a little that it'll get under control before I do - but it is an important example of epidemic outbreak and what works and what doesn't for controlling it. We are not doing all that well but luckily for us Ebola is very infectious but not very contagious. This makes it perfect for this kind of test. Its horrifying symptoms have long been beloved by all the thriller writers so everyone sort of knows to be scared but it is pretty hard to catch. I mean it's easy to get infected but it's you have to be very close to the sick people so it's relatively easy to stop it from spreading. It's not like some other diseases that we vacinate for where just breatheng the same air or being in the same room a sick person was in couple of hours before can make you sick.
Unfortunately this current outbreak started in some of the poorest countries with health systems thatdon't have enough resources to deal with it. The wide spread of the disease is a consequence of that. There was a shortage of even such basic things as gloves and rumours that led patints to escape qaurantine and it spread. Howeve, usually modern methods of disease control prevail - this how Nigeria stopped the outbreak.
There is also panic because it reached USA and Europe but you should remember that we are still pretty safe even though the prognosis is getting worse and worse for the worse affected regions. However if you are outside of West Africa there is no reason to panic.
But one good thing about that artificial panic is that it makes people pay attention and that makes the resources to deal with it more easily available. Including allowing the administration of experimental drugs. This doesn't happen very often as there are important reasons for testing them as long as we do but when chance of survival is pretty slim side effects become acceptable risk. Especially, in this case when we don't have much so we are throwing at it whatever we got. But sometimes even this kind of danger is not always enough - there is a vaccine in the works but it might be delayed because of the patent dispute.
Let's hope all this noise will result in a vaccine and improved systems dealing with outbreaks. In a perfect world malaria will be next (or can we at least make pundits scared of it enough for people to care?)
Unfortunately this current outbreak started in some of the poorest countries with health systems thatdon't have enough resources to deal with it. The wide spread of the disease is a consequence of that. There was a shortage of even such basic things as gloves and rumours that led patints to escape qaurantine and it spread. Howeve, usually modern methods of disease control prevail - this how Nigeria stopped the outbreak.
There is also panic because it reached USA and Europe but you should remember that we are still pretty safe even though the prognosis is getting worse and worse for the worse affected regions. However if you are outside of West Africa there is no reason to panic.
But one good thing about that artificial panic is that it makes people pay attention and that makes the resources to deal with it more easily available. Including allowing the administration of experimental drugs. This doesn't happen very often as there are important reasons for testing them as long as we do but when chance of survival is pretty slim side effects become acceptable risk. Especially, in this case when we don't have much so we are throwing at it whatever we got. But sometimes even this kind of danger is not always enough - there is a vaccine in the works but it might be delayed because of the patent dispute.
Let's hope all this noise will result in a vaccine and improved systems dealing with outbreaks. In a perfect world malaria will be next (or can we at least make pundits scared of it enough for people to care?)