I don't want to panic anyone, but Ebola may be coming to a town near you

[Skyy God]

At least we won't have to slog through another 7-9 Chiefs season....

Now there are American casualties.

Not in Gaza, and not on the ill-fated Malaysian airliner. Now there are American casualties in another war very far away so maybe, goddammit, somebody should start paying more attention to it.

Kent Brantly, 33, an American doctor who has been working in Liberia since October for the North Carolina-based aid organization Samaritan's Purse, is receiving intensive medical treatment after he was infected with Ebola, according to a spokeswoman for the group. Melissa Strickland said Brantly, who is married and has two children, was talking with his doctors and working on his computer while being treated. A second U.S. citizen, Nancy Writebol, also has tested positive for Ebola, Samaritan's Purse said. Writebol is employed by mission group SIM in Liberia and was helping a joint SIM/Samaritan's Purse team treating Ebola patients in Monrovia. Writebol is married with two children, the organization said. "Both of them tonight are in stable condition," Ken Isaacs, Samaritan Purse's vice president of programs and government relations, said Sunday. "But they are not out of the woods yet."

That's some serious Damien-at-Molokai hero stuff right there, still being at your computer while you're being treated for one of the most vicious diseases on the planet. Other medical professionals, alas, are not as lucky.

A Liberian government official said Sunday that one of that country's highest-profile doctors has died in what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the largest recorded outbreak of the disease...The first Liberian doctor to die of the disease was identified as Samuel Brisbane. He was working as a consultant with the internal medicine unit at the country's largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia. Brisbane, who once was a medical adviser to former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was taken to a treatment center on the outskirts of the capital after falling ill with Ebola and died there, said Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant health minister. He said another doctor who had been working in Liberia's central Bong County also was being treated for Ebola at the same center where Brisbane died. The situation "is getting more and more scary," Nyenswah said.

Yes, you could say that. The disease is now in both Nigeria and Liberia, and not in the backwater places any more, either, but in the capital cities. The ones with millions of people. And airports.

Over the weekend, health officials in Nigeria raced to stop the spread of Ebola after a man sick with the disease arrived on a flight in Lagos, Africa's largest city with 21 million people. He later died. The man's ability to board an international flight raised new fears that other passengers could carry the disease beyond Africa because of weak passenger inspection and the fact that Ebola's initial symptoms can resemble those of other illnesses. Isaacs said in an interview that "where it gets really scary" is that the disease, which was previously seen only "in very remote, small villages in Africa" is now being contracted by people in the capital cities of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. "Now the disease has been introduced into the big urban areas with millions of people," he said. "In the big cities, people can get on an airplane and fly out." Isaacs does not believe this outbreak his peaked. "I think the worst is yet to come," he said. "I hope I'm wrong."

Meanwhile, the local customs aren't helping a lot, either.

Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington district, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, said Sidi Yahya Tunis, a health ministry spokesman. The results came back on Thursday. "The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away," Tunis said. "We are searching for her."

Jesus save us. I don't mean to sound like a cultural imperialist -- although I seriously doubt that the people in rural Sierra Leone are acting out of what they know about the Tuskegee experiments, or what happened in Guatemala in the 1940's -- but snatching an Ebola patient out of the hospital doesn't sound like a very good way to fight the disease, family networks notwithstanding. (The purloined patient eventually died.) This thing is one airplane flight away from being an international catastrophe, but there is no boom-boom, and without boom-boom, there is no news. However, you know, Americans are getting sick now. Hey, Wolf! Over here?

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politic...Ebola_Outbreak

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Fish

Plus Atlanta isn't exactly the middle of the continental US.....

To be fair, it's one of the busiest airports in the country.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by Fish

. It was simply the fact that there was never any danger

not true

low isn't the same as no danger


considering the potential disaster if something did go wrong, i just didn't think we should take the risk

Plane crash,nature disaster ... anything at all and we could have an outbreak just like they do in Africa

Total arrogance that the doctors think they could control every possibility


glad it seems like nothing went wrong, although we won't know for sure for awhile

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

What part of Ebola is hard to catch dont you understand?

I don't give a single ****ing shit how difficult it is to catch

You don't invite a potential medical disaster into the country if you don't have to


doctors cared more about getting to play with their disease than they did the thousands of lives they put at risk

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

Plane crash,nature disaster ... anything at all and we could have an outbreak just like they do in Africa

I'd say that's just a tad of an exaggeration, since we have slightly superior medical care and facilities here.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

not true

low isn't the same as no danger


considering the potential disaster if something did go wrong, i just didn't think we should take the risk

Plane crash,nature disaster ... anything at all and we could have an outbreak just like they do in Africa

Total arrogance that the doctors think they could control every possibility


glad it seems like nothing went wrong, although we won't know for sure for awhile

The entire point is that there was never any potential for disaster. You're still going on about some risk, but there was never any risk to begin with. That's what you're not understanding. It's not that the got away with something risky, it's that the risk was never there. There was no way this could have turned into an outbreak epidemic like it Africa simply because our country is not Africa. Even a plane crash or natural disaster would not have resulted in an outbreak. That's what the medical professionals tried to explain.

[Mr. Laz]

Another American Doctor in Liberia Tests Positive for Ebola
BY COLIN DAILEDA & AMANDA WILLS
5 minutes ago

An American doctor working as a missionary in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, says SIM (Serving In Mission), a Christian ministry organization based in North Carolina.

The doctor, who remains unidentified, was treating obstetrics patients at SIM’s ELWA hospital in Monrovia, but was not working directly with Ebola patients. According to SIM, it's unknown how he contracted the virus.

SEE ALSO: What Life Is Like in a Country Haunted by Ebola

Ebola has killed more than 1,500 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria and has now appeared in a fifth West African country, Senegal, in the worst outbreak ever recorded.

This is a developing story. We will continue to update as more information becomes available.

[Mr. Laz]

Missionary infected with Ebola while working in Liberia to get treatment at Nebraska hospital

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 04, 2014 - 4:55 pm EDT

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — A North Carolina-based charity says the missionary who was infected with Ebola while serving in Liberia is being flown to a Nebraska hospital for treatment.

A statement from SIM on Thursday says Dr. Rick Sacra is being flown to The Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. He is expected to arrive on Friday and begin treatment in the hospital's Biocontainment Patient Care Unit.

SIM president Bruce Johnson says Sacra was receiving excellent care from staff at a care center in Liberia, but he says the Nebraska facility provides advanced monitoring equipment and a wider availability of treatment options.

Sacra, a doctor from the Boston area, opted to head to Liberia after hearing that two other missionaries were sick. He was infected by the virus that has killed about 1,900 people.

[L.A. Chieffan]

Are we all dead yet?

[Skyy God]

And it's Dallas. Step right up Dallas and claim your prize.

[lcarus]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

And it's Dallas. Step right up Dallas and claim your prize.

Damn it. I'm 4 hours away from Dallas.

[BWillie]

Still don't quite understand how people are able to freely fly back and forth from Liberia to the United States...but whatever, who cares if we introduce Ebola to the US...

[ShowtimeSBMVP]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

And it's Dallas. Step right up Dallas and claim your prize.

Sounds like he was just in the U.S to visit.

[thecoffeeguy]

Originally Posted by ChiefsandO'sfan

Sounds like he was just in the U.S to visit.

send him back....

[loochy]

Originally Posted by lcarus

Damn it. I'm 4 hours away from Dallas.

Damn it. I'm 30 minutes away from Dallas

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by lcarus

Damn it. I'm 4 hours away from Dallas.

Ebola AND a 3-1 Cowboys team? Prayers sent.