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Monday, October 20, 2014

Ebola Question: Why Aren't We Using The PCR?

To screen every arrival from the Ebola Hot Zone in Africa — or, better yet, to screen before these potential pathogen-carriers board a commercial jetliner in the Hot Zone:
...[W]e can marry quarantine with technology using polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. At a cost of $60 to $200 the test looks for viral particles in the blood and amplifies them millions of folds, picking up most cases of Ebola patients who may still be asymptomatic. While not 100 percent foolproof, the PCR test increases the level of certainty in determining if a patient has an Ebola infection, which can ultimately lead to a more accurate decision...
Read "Rethinking the 21-Day Quarantine for Ebola Contacts" in its entirety HERE. There is more information in the article than the above excerpt, including the following:
...[A] recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine detailing the first nine months of the 2014 epidemic in West Africa raises concern about the short, often-mentioned 21 post-exposure-day periods in the guidelines. In the journal's study of 4,507 probable and confirmed cases, "approximately 95 percent of the case patients had symptom onset within 21 days of exposure." If we do the math, this means that approximately 5 percent or 225 of the Ebola cases in West Africa had symptoms 21 days after exposure, as reported by the patient or caregiver....
Additional reading: Ebola Protection Guidelines On CDC Website Riddled With Mistakes.

[My unrelated-to-Ebola post today at Infidel Bloggers Alliance: How To Lose A War]

18 comments:

  1. How the Ebola Epidemic of 2014 began (from the BBC):

    The origin has been traced to a two-year-old child from the village of Gueckedou in south-eastern Guinea, an area where batmeat is frequently hunted and eaten.

    The infant, dubbed Child Zero, died on 6 December 2013. The child's family stated they had hunted two species of bat which carry the Ebola virus.


    Note the date.

    It took several months before the plague set in. And claimed how many lives?

    We should be relieved and grateful that we've had no more cases stemming from index patient Thomas Eric Duncan. But we should also remember that it takes a period of time before an epidemic gets rolling.

    Also note this from the above link:

    n Africa's Congo Basin, people eat an estimated five million tonnes of bushmeat per year...

    How can we possibly put a halt to Ebola if the source cannot be contained?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can sum it up in one word
    " fearmongers"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keep telling yourself that. Screaming "Fearmongers!" at a pathogen won't do anything to curb the spread of that pathogen.

      Disbelieve that at your own peril -- and at the peril of your loved ones.

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. What has become of our confidence in our Government since Barack Hussein Obama became President? There has been a loss of confidence in every aspect of our Government since Barack Hussein Obama became President, and wherever and whoever you speak to will tell you that they no longer trust or believe anything that is said ot us by any member of the administration, about anything. But don’t worry our drear leader will take care of you. He’ll send in a “Czar“ to fix whatever wows you may have...And as late here has been the continued loss of confidence Americans regarding the information told to us by the Center for Disease Control, the Secret Service, the Department of Justice and even the Internal Revenue Service. The term and a half of Barack Hussein Obama has been a series of lies, scandals, and failures.
    The latest example was the naming of Ron Klain Ebola tp be the Ebola Czar! Like we really needed another Czar! We saw what happened the last time Obama appointed a “Czar“, didn’t we! Well this time our “Czar“, seems to have NO Medical or Health background or experience, NONE at ALL! But who needs any experience when you have the credentials of being a former chief of staff to Al Gore and Joe Biden.
    Does a background with those credentials make you feel any safer about the threat of a Ebola epidemic? Will Mr. Klain help us prevent an outbreak of the plague? Well, you figure it out! I think that most Americans, not including the Progressive crowd aka the “low information” ignorant ones, who are calling us Republicans-Conservatives,”Fear Mongers” are a bit more than disappointed with the President these days. And it’s totally understandable. Who wouldn’t when their Hero, their “Messiah” got the worst marks ever for his handling the Ebola situation, as well as the situation in Iraq, with 52 percent disapproving rating, his lowest yet. DISSATISFACTION with Obama’s handling ISSI, and his foreign policy has shot up among both Republicans and Democrats in the past month and he has been sinking in the polls with members of his own party so much that they don’t even want his endorsements in the upcoming November elections. In fact most of the members of his own party don’t even want o be seen with him. ,
    We’re still feeling the effects of the Obama Recession and its obvious that this failed liberal policies are not working, not at home and not abroad. And guess who was in charge of Obama’s “stimulus” program? RON KLAIN, THE NEW “EBOLA CZAR”.
    Only the naive or ignorant uninformed believe that the government knows what they are doing. Their answer to every problem government encounters is spend more money. .

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    Replies
    1. @ Right Winger

      If anyone is paying attention in America today, the presidency of Barack Obama provided a valuable service to the American people. If nothing else, it taught us that we could not trust government to do the right thing for the nation, or its people. It should have alerted us to the danger of foreign ideology, as expressed within the so-called progressive movement. It should also remind us that the words that politicians say are very often code words, which means something completely different from what we think.

      For many Americans, our politics is foul and unsuitable for people who value the things that many have died to preserve: our liberty; our right to live our lives with minimum interference from government. We should also have learned that even if politics is filthy, we could not divorce ourselves from it. If we try to ignore it, people who should never have the trust of the American people will win elections and rule over us. This is more dangerous that anyone can imagine.

      Rather than complaining about Obama, who at least told us the truth about himself, who promised to destroy our country, you should complain about the dimwits who voted for him on two occasions. We should be asking, how was it even possible for the American people to elect this fraud? The shame is ours, not Obamas. Neither can we afford to elect low class people such as McCain, or Gore, or Biden, or Clinton, or any remaining member of the so-called Bush dynasty. If that is all we have, Right Winger ... our country is done. Elections do have consequences. Who doesn’t know that, now?

      Delete
    2. The GOP has produced fake scandal after fake scandal based on fear mongering and misinformation if not outright lies. You listed them all. This ebola crap is just another in a series.

      Delete
    3. Mustang,
      Elections do have consequences. Who doesn’t know that, now?

      We'll find out about about who doesn't know on November 4, the date of the National Intelligence Test.

      Delete
    4. Federal Temperature Sensors Won't Save YouOctober 22, 2014 at 7:56:00 AM CDT

      This One:

      You're a hopium-addled moron.

      People really did die in Benghazi, all those IRS hard drives and blackberrys really did "fail," and Ebola really did arrive here.

      Our economy really is still in the toilet, millions still can't find work, the middle class really is becoming poorer, and minorities are no better off than when The Messiah took office in 2009.

      But hey! The Solyndras, the Teslas, the politically well-connected, the crony crapitalists, the Wall Street banksters and other FOOs (Friends of Obama) are doing great, living off of DC largess, not to mention the DC bureaucratic class itself, which has now become one of the most prosperous locales in the US.

      Pull your head out, dummy!

      Delete
  5. Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, is going around telling people in the third world who don’t even drink water from a glass, because they don’t have one. that mankind is doomed because “climate change”! And that “climate change” will destroy all life unless billions of dollars are spent in ways that will avoid it. How’s that for “Fear Mongering? How’s that for telling the world that the “Sky is Falling”
    Obama has sent more than 4,000 of our military to Africa’s Ebola hot zone and he did so rapidly as what will be described as a humanitarian gesture, but he has never seen any necessity to dispatch our military to our southern border to stem illegal entry. Indeed, his administration has taken Arizona to court when it passed legislation to address the problem. In the meantime, we are left to wonder what will happen if our soldiers become ill with Ebola?
    Our military’s mission is now being redirected to addressing “climate change” or going to Africa to help cure that dreaded decease. Is this why our Brave men enlisted (YES enlisted) in the military, to go to Africa and be exposed themselves to a plague like Ebola? Instead of NOT being withdrawn from Iraq, where there is a new, larger and far more dangerous situation, the Islamic State, ISIS, not ISIl has emerged, and stretching into Syria as well. Beheading Americans!
    This ISIS bunch seems a lot more dangerous than Al-Qaeda was. But then again Al-Qaeda is gone, as our dear leader told us, they are on the run. So what the hell are so frightened about?

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  6. Money, time, availability of the tests? Who knows. Why would the Obama regime ever do the logical thing? Never that I have seen.

    Debbie
    Right Truth
    http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Republicans Only Vote for People Who Look like ThemOctober 20, 2014 at 1:46:00 PM CDT

    The shameful politicization of Ebola by the right continues with politicians blaming President Obama for their refusal to confirm his Surgeon General nominee, and the rightwing pundits and bloggers spooking themselves and their followers with predictions of certain death for millions of Americans. The reality, of course, is nowhere near their ridiculous Chicken Little squawkings. Anything to discredit Mr. Obama. Despite the best efforts of Rush Limburger,-Boehner-McConnell--Ted Cruz-Paul-Paul, et. al. to prevent the federal government from creating a response to The Plague, it just didn’t happen, and the Plague is already under control. I can just see how disappointed the Baggers are.
    However how small, and insignificant this so called “outbreak” WAS, the Cringe Fringers so desperately want a full-blown epidemic to spread through the U.S, and even if that doesn't happen, they will continue to inject fear and misinformation into this issue so that it has the APPEARANCE of reality.
    But have no fear, they’ll find some new, be it terror, or sickness, or illegal immigrants, for them to whine about in a week or two... or less..somehow, someway...;. They always do.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @ ROVFPWLLT,


    "the Plague is already under control"

    Damn, I sure feel a lot better now! "Mr. Obama" has pulled-off yet another miracle. Let's give him a 3rd term!

    ReplyDelete
  9. UH, OH!

    Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease is on the front lines fighting this disease in Liberia. He is one of the top authorities in the world on Ebola, and what his team has been seeing under the microscope is incredibly sobering...

    Dr. Peter Jahrling is a big name. A very big name. I've known of him for years. Do a Google search to find out more about Dr. Jahrling.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Medically ethical -- on the grounds that "we are not equipped to handle that condition"....

    Quest Diagnostics To Doctors: Not Accepting Ebola Blood, Patients

    Excerpt:

    Quest Diagnostics, the nation’s largest diagnostic lab company, has told doctors, hospitals and health care providers nationwide the company will not accept blood samples suspected of being infected with Ebola; and will not knowingly allow any patients suspected of having Ebola into Quest offices.

    In a message sent Oct. 11 to hospitals and doctors, Quest Diagnostics said, “Patients with known or suspected Ebola hemorrhagic fever should not be referred to Quest Patient Service Centers or Quest In-Office Phlebotomists for specimen collections of any type.”


    BTW, Quest is the largest such diagnostic lab in the United States.

    The same grounds were used here in Northern Virginia when Virginia Hospital Center refused to accept the Pentagon Puker, designated at the time as "potential Ebola case."

    ReplyDelete
  11. The news is good.

    No new cases.
    Nurse No. 1 has been upgraded to good condition.
    Nurse No. 2 is recuperating but has been declared Ebola free.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Duck,
      Yes. Good news. Thank God!

      The NIH facilities are experts and have access to trial drugs and the like. Miracles are wrought by the NIH.

      I doubt that these two nurses would have recovered in any other facilities.

      Delete
    2. Duck,
      Around here, in the older cemeteries, we see grave after grave with 1918-1919 death dates on the tombstones. The flu epidemic, of course. My father lived through that period as did my maternal grandmother. I know via those anecdotes just how bad a real epidemic is. God forbid that we should another such epidemic.

      Delete

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