NZ makes plans for ebola outbreak

It's just crazy with there being like a 3-4 week incubation period. Not so much like the movies where people break out in a day or so; people can get far from where things started. Lots of fear - heard some villages in Africa are shooting at strangers to force them to turn around. And the drugs in testing aren't approved for people.
 
:SNEEEZE: you're it!

*self-head slap* I know it's not a joke, but come on today is 2014, don't we have any cure/vaccines for Ebola virus?
 
authentic said:
:SNEEEZE: you're it!

*self-head slap* I know it's not a joke, but come on today is 2014, don't we have any cure/vaccines for Ebola virus?
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nope. not for virus. still no cure for cold, flu, HIV/AIDS, SARS, etc.... that's how terrifying and destructive the virus is.

there are very few level-4 labs in the world that are equipped to deal with virus like Ebola.

my prediction? I don't think we'll ever find a cure for most virus but it's much more feasible now to come up with nanotechnology for our immune system. all we need to do is invent nanobots to block the certain proteins in our cells so that virus can't latch onto cell and replicate itself.

in short... we can't cure virus but we can prevent virus from infecting us.
 
shel90 said:
They said it is unlikely it has spread
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correct. Ebola virus has been around for over 30 years. it's fine. definitely not going to spread and infect some modern cities like in zombie movies. it's not that easy.

the only way to effectively and rapidly spread to general population in multiple cities is to create a weaponized version (aerosol type) of Ebola virus and then release it at one major airport. it only takes one major airport to infect hundreds of people flying to different cities and then infect more at exponential rate.

the trickiest part? how to not make a host showing any symptom of illness during flight before arriving at final destination because we already have emergency protocol to deal with biohazard situation in airplane. it would be quickly contained with only people inside the plane (how unfortunate, I know). I know because I was in Homeland Security drill at JFK airport as an observer. The drill deals with CBRN scenarios plus airport car bombs, plane crash, hijack, etc. I've observed only plane crash scenario because rest of scenarios is classified.

so creating a weaponized Ebola virus requires a multimillion dollar bio-level 4 lab and dozens of top scientists so the chance is pretty much nil for any terrorist organization to do it.
 
Grummer said:
they say this to keep you calm......but what if, it REALLY break out.....there's no STOPPING!!.....
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yea it's easy to stop it. contain it and firebomb it with extreme prejudice. and then tell medias that it was a burst gas pipeline that killed everybody :)
 
To put things into prospective about "curing things" something you have to understand... Lets take the common cold for example. Something you would believe to be the easiest thing to cure... right? Relatively simple... low symptoms. Sniffling, itchy eyes, low fever, coughing maybe a headache and some aches. This is caused by the rhinovirus and there are well over 150 strands of it. When these colds initially enter your body, they enter as say, cold A. However while they are in your body, they mutate, causing an additional strand of a cold. You go next to your coworker and before you know it, you spread it to them. They mutate said cold and take it home to your loved ones. It mutates and they give it back to you. It's a vicious cycle of mutating rhinovirus.

Viruses are ALWAYS harder to cure than bacteria simply because viruses are small molecules that produce only a handful of proteins, so there are fewer "targets" for treatment. There are five known strands of Ebola. It is hard to try and cure Ebola because it is so incredibly dangerous to humans, that it presents an incredible difficulty for scientists to experiment with. So, they must work in HIGHLY protected laboratories with HIGHLY protected rooms and suits... which you can imagine is incredibly expensive and very limited. Not every scientist exactly jumps at wanting to study this being it has a mortality rate as high as 90%. So, there are only a handful of places in the world you can do Ebola experimentation. Also, at this point in time...relatively few people have ever been infected with Ebola, and even fewer have survived, thus making it hard to study the virus in people or examine whether there are certain biological factors that help people survive. There are some studies that show promise... but nothing as a cure thus far... sadly. It is a very difficult thing to cure. :( All you can do for the person is hook them up to an IV, hydrate them, treat any internal and external bleeding they may have and hope for the best, sadly. Ebola is a quarantine level 4... which is the highest precaution medical staff and scientists take. It is immediate lock down and suit up, no exceptions. All we can do is hope this will not spread... Personally and from what we have been told, I don't think it will be a zombie apocalypse as Jiro said... :laugh2: You can rest well tonight. :P
 
Grummer said:
^^ hmmm seems probable
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yea just like Lake Nyos. it killed about 1,700 people. not a single living thing in that area and I'm including birds, animals, etc. the government said that because the villages/towns were located near crater which is in the lake, the lake burped up enough CO2 cloud to suffocate and kill everything that are within about 16 miles (about 26 km for you) from the lake.

a conspiracy theory? the government chemical-bomb it.. or biological weapon to contain it :lol:
 
Remember H5N1 (Bird Flu Virus) started in China, and it spread to US. I believe Ebola will spread to US unless FAA ban passengers and flights that are from Africa (even multiple flights). I know it's not going to be easy, because if that person has Ebola flew from Nigeria to Paris, and spread the virus to another passengers that are on the way to America.
 
This is the right time to watch TV series, "The Last Ship". It's all about virus. I don't mean it's funny!
 
I don't think nanobots would work in the long run if your meaning to inject them into a human body we have defense mechanisms and the body would pick them up as an invader and get rid of them. I don't remember the exact name for it but there is a certain cell that is referred to as "killer white cell" it grabs foreign cells in the body then dies and is flushed out of the system.
 
ncff07 said:
I don't think nanobots would work in the long run if your meaning to inject them into a human body we have defense mechanisms and the body would pick them up as an invader and get rid of them. I don't remember the exact name for it but there is a certain cell that is referred to as "killer white cell" it grabs foreign cells in the body then dies and is flushed out of the system.
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The doctor died from ebola. How come he didn't have the cure for it?
 
There............. is............. no............... cure............... for................. Ebola.............
 
ncff07 said:
I don't think nanobots would work in the long run if your meaning to inject them into a human body we have defense mechanisms and the body would pick them up as an invader and get rid of them. I don't remember the exact name for it but there is a certain cell that is referred to as "killer white cell" it grabs foreign cells in the body then dies and is flushed out of the system.
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our defense mechanism is largely ineffective against virus - to be more specific... retrovirus. once a virus attaches itself to a cell... it's already too late. there's only so much white cells can do but it's too late anyway because ebola virus fatality rate is 90% and HIV is incurable.

you cannot keep taking antiviral cocktails for life. that's the whole point of nanobots. it will live inside you for a long time to protect yourself against virus. it would prevent a virus from attaching itself to a cell. white blood cell does not do that.

so it's totally doable. I don't think we'll ever find cure for HIV/AIDS/Ebola/etc. The best we can do is to prevent these virus from infecting our cells.
 
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