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

[ThaVirus]

I've been saying we could use a good plague to thin the herd, but this is actually pretty scary.

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

I've been saying we could use a good plague to thin the herd, but this is actually pretty scary.

How do we know you're not Ebola??

[Pepe Silvia]

We're gonna get the Super AIDS.

Quick everyone to Nzoners cornfield.

[rambleonthruthefog]

Overpopulation is imminent. The culling of human population, most likely through a plague like virus, is inevitable.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Cave Johnson

Well, that's going to make it harder to contain.

Yes, but it's not infectious unless you're showing symptoms. Unfortunately, the symptoms are basically flu-like or whatever, so it's not like "HEY, CRAP, EBOLA!!" But I'm fairly confident it would be contained relatively quickly in a western country where they don't distrust doctors, insist on burying their dead (and/or digging up their graves to give ebola victims "proper" burials) and other stupidities that help ebola thrive.

[Fish]

New Study Suggests The World Is On The Brink Of The Next Great Extinction

Image: Not Safe for Work

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by PackerinMo

We're gonna get the Super AIDS.

Quick everyone to Nzoners cornfield.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Fish

New Study Suggests The World Is On The Brink Of The Next Great Extinction

Image: Not Safe for Work

Walking Dead style zombies, please.

No 28 Days or World War Z types.

[TLO]

Kill it with bleach and fire. Sorry Africa.

[BlackHelicopters]

Scary shit.

[Kiimo]

Originally Posted by rambleonthruthefog

Overpopulation is imminent. The culling of human population, most likely through a plague like virus, is inevitable.

This is always a real fun game to play unless of course one of your family members helps cull the population then it doesn't seem as fun an arrogant myopic pragmatist thing to whip out at parties.

[Kidd Lex]

Where the heck is Rainman at to chime in and give us all perspective and direction? eidntwnt2di

[KC native]

Originally Posted by Kiimosabi

This is always a real fun game to play unless of course one of your family members helps cull the population then it doesn't seem as fun an arrogant myopic pragmatist thing to whip out at parties.

It's fun as long as it's for the greater good.

[BWillie]

Honest to god, something needs to be done at these airports. I don't care how they have to do it, even if it means a temporarily hold on people flying out of the affected areas. The world cannot risk this thing being unleashed on the rest of the world and densely populated areas. There is whispers that Ebola is already airborne in some cases. If it mutates into a virus that is as easily caught as the common cold, it will be devastating if it gets out of Africa.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by The God Hypothesis

Where the heck is Rainman at to chime in and give us all perspective and direction? eidntwnt2di

I'm busy building up my food and water stockpile for the inevitable in-home quarantine.