Ebola could hit again and we would hardly do better

[cronus]

http://newsdaily.com/2015/06/ebola-coul ... etter-msf/

Ebola could hit again and we would hardly do better: MSF

DAKAR (Reuters) – The Ebola epidemic could flare up again in West Africa and health authorities are no better equipped to control it than they were a year ago, the head of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Saturday.

“The reality today is if Ebola were to hit on scale it did in August and September, we would hardly do much better than we did the last time around,” Joanne Liu said on the sidelines of a meeting on Ebola in Dakar.
Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations vowed this week to wipe out the epidemic that has killed more than 11,100 people across West Africa, but offered little concrete action.
While the virus is spreading more slowly than at the peak last year and Liberia has defeated the outbreak, cases have risen sharply in the past two weeks in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

“We’ve been disappointed by the World Health Assembly and again by the G7 in terms of their recommendations,” Liu, the international president of MSF, told Reuters. She was referring also to a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting last month.

The WHO did not declare an international public health emergency until August last year, eight months after the first Ebola case, delaying resources to the sick.

Jerome Mouton, MSF country head for Guinea, described a state of “semi-denial” about the virus similar to a year ago, adding that another major flare-up of the disease was possible.

Read more at http://newsdaily.com/2015/06/ebola-coul ... 3dME4AX.99

[Blind groper]

Maybe. But this outbreak has resulted in several experimental drugs and a couple of experimental vaccines. They need more testing, and that requires an ebola outbreak. But it is progress.

[cronus]

Maybe. But this outbreak has resulted in several experimental drugs and a couple of experimental vaccines. They need more testing, and that requires an ebola outbreak. But it is progress.

The plan is proceeding smoothly. Drugs to quell the coming pandemic in the rich world. All the land in the third world given over to mechanized agriculture and the production of biofuels...

[cronus]

Maybe. But this outbreak has resulted in several experimental drugs and a couple of experimental vaccines. They need more testing, and that requires an ebola outbreak. But it is progress.

The plan is proceeding smoothly. Drugs to quell the coming pandemic in the rich world. All the land in the third world given over to mechanized agriculture and the production of biofuels...

[cronus]

faulty mouse...keeps doubling up on me....

[laklak]

Wouldn't that be "faulty mice", then?

[JimC]

At least they know now that families handling the dead bodies was a major accelerant; some of the basic quarantine procedures will not have to be re-invented, so it should be possible to get on top of an outbreak more quickly...

[Blind groper]

70% of all ebola infections were from handling corpses. It struck me to wonder why we could not have used robots to deliver corpses to graves. Of course, that would require robots to be sent from western nations to West Africa, but WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

[cronus]

70% of all ebola infections were from handling corpses. It struck me to wonder why we could not have used robots to deliver corpses to graves. Of course, that would require robots to be sent from western nations to West Africa, but WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

Portable incinerator would be cheaper and easier given the terrain. It is always easier to adapt to the level of local technology, rather than turn up with something over the top futurist.