Is it fair to send 700 military personnel to face Ebola in West Africa

[GLASGOWOODS]

I take your point on spanish flu... which was spread in much the same way as ebola is and of course was airborne too. Any virus can mutate and ebola becoming as airborne as flu is always a possibility

 

 

 

I see the potential for this to go global as very real and it has the potential for the deaths from spanish flu to pale in comparison.

 

The growth rate of the number of people infected with ebola is exponential with roughly a 50% fatality rate and a threat to us all. When it was more or less confined to small outbreaks in africa the governements throughout the rest of the world largely ingnored it and now it looks as though we may all potentially pay the price for continuing to take little or no action.

 

I'm all for as many measures as extreme as you like to both contain and then tackle this, short of dropping a nuke on the infected areas as they seem to or threaten to in every movie about a virus running wild.

 

Adopting an adpated version of the precautions that used to be in place to prevent rabies seems quite reasonable to me. Quaratine people wishing to enter or re-enter the country, from anywhere, and at their own expense or don't let them in. The same consideration should be applied to all imports too. Which will help considerably to prevent people entering the country illegally. Obviously if these measures were applied universally containment would stand more chance of success. We are fortunate in being an island self-quarantine would not be that difficult to implement when ebola gets established on any of the continents they are going to be in serious trouble.

 

Taking the option of adopting these measures now whilst it is still an option will hopefuly prevent the need for far more extreme and much harder to implement measures later.

 

Then once it is contained we can focus on assisting the people in the infected areas and hopefully eradicating ebola or at least developing a safe vaccine.

 

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And then there's Malaria.

 

207 million illnesses worldwide annually.

over 650,000 deaths annually.

[Tommo68]

And then there's Malaria.

 

207 million illnesses worldwide annually.

over 650,000 deaths annually.

 

 

Malaria ought to be eradicated, but the question is ..how?

 

Since the first homid slapped an annoying tick we have fought against insects, to my knowledge we have not wiped out a single species. The ramifications for the eco system of which mosquitoes are a part would be devastating even if we were we able find a way to target them specifically and wipe them out.

 

Killing off the mossies is not the answer somehow tackling the plasmodium parasite or at least its ability to be carried by mosquitoes would appear to be a possible solution.

 

However ebola with its present exponential rate of spread, whatever the cause, is right now a potentially far greater threat to the whole of the human race than malaria.

 

Occurances of malaria are more or less confined to zones with a certain climate. Ebola is getting to be everywhere. If it is only transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of the infected as we are being told then it makes complete sense to suspend all movement of people, quarantine the affected area and either cure it or wait till it burns itself out, preferably the former even if the latter is possible.

 

As I mentioned previously some countries like the UK are islands and keeping other people out until ebola is n longer a problem is a feasible intirim strategy, as is confining ebola to Africa.

 

I imagine once occurances of ebola in european countries and the US get into 3 or 4 digit numbers Denver airport is going to get very busy for while.