Ebola...

[crestofwaves]

Has anyone here read The Hot Zone? If not, it's a must read.  Watching and reading the news about the Ebola outbreak in Africa has me concerned, and mostly it's because I read this book years ago.

If not contained, the Ebola virus can wipe out entire populations, as did the Black Death back in the Middle Ages.

[Lifesighs]

Why aren't the areas quarantined? We get rid of smallpox and another deadly disease rears its head. If they would keep everyone in where there is an outbreak it would not spread.

[P.A.]

I also read that the severity of the disease makes it less likely to become a pandemic. People who get Ebola generally feel so bad so quickly once symptoms present and they are contagious that they don't go anywhere.

[P.A.]

Someone else recommend it to me yesterday. I haven't found it yet but I will. The out break in East Africa has hit closer to me than I expected. My sister called me two days ago and ask me if I had seem the coverage on the news. I said I had and she asked if I recognized the name of the doctor who is infected. I said I hadn't paid attention to that part. She said it was Kent Brantly the son of one of her long time friends. I know his mother and father and remember seeing him when he was a child.

[crestofwaves]

Wow, PA.  It IS a small world.  Six degrees of separation.

I also read that the way we live here is not conducive to the spread of the disease.  In Africa, in the heat, one way to get around is on a bus with lots and lots of other people.  It can be contracted through sweat. Also, belief in witchcraft hampers people from telling anyone they have it or know someone who has it, so it can spread that way as well.

But the events of the news lately are almost identical to Hot Zone.