How contagious is ebola?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8434350

by rdlecler1 • 12 years ago

15 11 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I saw this article on NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/02/352983774/no-seriously-how-contagious-is-ebola

and I'm having trouble reconciling this with the fact that health care workers seem to be so easily infected. I can't imagine that HIV is transmitted to health care workers this easily otherwise they'd be wearing hazmat suits.

arshadgc• 12 years ago

Agreed! There's a total disconnect between what we hear from people looking to ease public anxiety and what we see and learn on the news.

It's actually so contagious that even taking off your hazmat suit incorrectly can get you infected. That's because the virus can live for some period on surfaces, and that's the reason why doctors use a buddy system to remove their protective gear. It's also the reason houses, vehicles, and hospital rooms have to be decontaminated after an ebola victim passes through.

According to the World Health Organization: "People can be exposed to Ebola virus from direct physical contact with body fluids like blood, saliva, stool, urine, sweat etc. of an infected person and soiled linen used by a patient."

So, touch an ebola victim's bedsheets and you can get the disease. That's why it's so alarmingly contagious. It is NOT like AIDS and it probably IS something we should worry about. In this case, public paranoia might actually save lives.

Here's the link to the WHO site: http://www.afro.who.int/en/clusters-a-programmes/dpc/epidemi...

atom-morgan• 12 years ago

This article definitely seems to think it's more contagious than what the CDC believes: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentar...

Someone1234• 12 years ago

Your summation of that article is a little overblown. They say "we really have no idea, so let's be very careful." Plus what the CDC tells medical personal and what the CDC tells the public aren't synonymous.

echolima• 12 years ago

Back when I was a FF/Paramedic I worried more about Hep C and MRSA. That being said, I am really glad not to be on the "front line" anymore. I feel for my brothers and sisters as they start to face this.

deadfall• 12 years ago

On NPR radio this morning with doctors answering questions about the issue. Some doctors say that the only way to contract it is by body fluids and then through going in open abrasion, mouth, and etc. They also say that is could potentially be caught within a radius of 3 feet, but there still is not a lot of research.

On VICE they went to ground zero and showed the epidemic up close. They always had to wash their hands with chlorine.

A side note, they are putting Ebola testing check points in five different US International Airports. This seems a little worrisome because I believe these Airports could be easily bypassed.

In honesty, as an American, I am not too worried about contracting it here.

jere• 12 years ago

I feel similarly. A lot of people in the media are blowing it off and making it seem like it's so easy to avoid infection.

Glenn Beck made a song about Ebola with advice including "Don’t lick vomit off the street." Sure, it's Glenn Beck writing a stupid song, but I get the same reaction from other places. Stephen Colbert interviewed an infection specialist who said, "The only way to get infected is to touch that blood barehanded or smear it on your face."

Technically true I suppose, but the implication is that only crazy people could contract this. It's clearly not true. Healthcare workers make up 10% of the deaths in this outbreak.

And this article you posted isn't reassuring at all. The graph at the top appears comforting, until you read the footnote:

The R0 is integrated over the time that a person is infectious to others. For HIV, this could be years. But for Ebola, that time is only about a week. So even though they have similar R0s, Ebola's infections per unit of time is much higher than HIV's.

So you should expect the number of cases to double roughly ever week? Super. Looking at the WHO estimates, it's closer to once a month (1 week contagious + 21 day incubation period I suppose), but that's still pretty terrifying, since 20 more months at that rate would be the world's population. To be clear, I'm not making any claims about how this will play out, but only demonstrating bewilderment at how that article is supposed to be reassuring.

I'm willing to accept the claims that our healthcare system can easily contain this, but I really don't understand the sentiment that it's not very contagious.

Torgo• 12 years ago

It is some kind of weird social thing. A bunch of people are all trying to rush to the front of the line of people proclaiming "don't panic" so they look like they're smart. Not that the correct course of action is "panic" though.

adventured• 12 years ago

A simple conceptual question I've had about Ebola: a person that is contagious goes to the grocery store, uses a cart, pushes the cart around with sweat / cough / saliva on their hands; I then use the cart within a reasonably short time after, and proceed to rub my eyes randomly or touch my face near my mouth.

How high risk are normal scenarios like that? I can't seem to find any great answers, and Ebola seems to be a little bit easier to get than is being let on.

mudwort• 12 years ago

Why are we sending people to work with ebola patients ? Consider these facts:

1. Protective suits and safety protocols have limited success. 2. The WHO says the average Ebola survival rate is about 50 percent. 3. The number of recent Ebola cases are believed to exceed 8000. 4. Ebola survivors are believed to be immune to future infection.

Therefore thousands of immune people are already onsite. Shouldn't our efforts be focused on training and supplying the survivors?

loqqus• 12 years ago

Given the rate at which it has spread, and that health care workers who should be the best informed on how to avoid it have still contracted the disease, I would say it's pretty darn contagious.

Don't trust govt agencies and their lapdog media to tell you the truth about it. (Should go without saying.)

I'm finding it pretty interesting to watch it play out on my site here. For instance you can see today people are tweeting about the first suspected case in Brazil: http://loqq.us/E

chrisBob• 12 years ago

My understanding is that ebola is not contagious until you show symptoms, but then it becomes very contagious. In this case bodily fluids even includes sweat which makes infection from casual contact much more likely than most other diseases.

How contagious is ebola?

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