Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Canadian ban is curious in that it is not limited to nationals of the affected areas. It includes all foreigners who transitioned through the affected areas. Sounds to me like they became concerned about US people flying into Canada.
The ruling also includes room for discretion.
Both Australia and now Canada are in violation of International Health Regulations, a part of the 2005 WHO treaty. As I understand it, Canada was previously a strong advocate for this treaty to avoid a repeat of the WHO advisory relative to travel to/ from Toronto during the SARS outbreak.
More about Canada's response - sending money but no health workers:
An interesting question, Hyper. I cannot find much except animal studies and nothing about actually trying to isolate virus from the brain or spinal fluid. Needless to say, doing an autopsy on an Ebola victim would not be high on the list of activities that a pathologist would enjoy.
It is hard to say whether the neurologic symptoms described are from direct effects of the virus or cerebral edema and/or hemorrhage or clotting due to the coagulation abnormalities. The virus does most of its dirty work inside blood vessels, evading the immune system and knocking out the liver at the same time.
It is more of a general systemic inflammatory response which is the trigger I suspect. Uveitis, neurological sequelae and other essential issues. I would suspect that inflammatory markers would all be elevated in the presence of resolving acute infections.
In 1987 the Reagan Admin banned entry to the U.S. by forgiveness infected with HIV/ AIDs which fed into the ignorance and panic of the general population. there was no reasonable way of enforcing this policy and it remained in effect for 22 years.
The U.S. did not ban travel from China during the SARS outbreak.
About 12,000 US people died of the H1N1 virus and the U.S. did not ban travel from affected countries.
An interesting question, Hyper. I cannot find much except animal studies and nothing about actually trying to isolate virus from the brain or spinal fluid. Needless to say, doing an autopsy on an Ebola victim would not be high on the list of activities that a pathologist would enjoy.
It is hard to say whether the neurologic symptoms described are from direct effects of the virus or cerebral edema and/or hemorrhage or clotting due to the coagulation abnormalities. The virus does most of its dirty work inside blood vessels, evading the immune system and knocking out the liver at the same time.
It is more of a general systemic inflammatory response which is the trigger I suspect. Uveitis, neurological sequelae and other essential issues. I would suspect that inflammatory markers would all be elevated in the presence of resolving acute infections.
You are correct. In fact, levels of some of those markers are correlated with survival.
"The period of 42 days, with active case-finding in place, is twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola virus disease and is considered by WHO as sufficient to generate confidence in a declaration that an Ebola outbreak has ended.
Recent studies conducted in West Africa have demonstrated that
95% of confirmed cases have an incubation period in the range of 1 to 21 days;
98% have an incubation period that falls within the 1 to 42 day interval.
WHO is therefore confident that detection of no new cases, with active surveillance in place, throughout this 42-day period means that an Ebola outbreak is indeed over.
The announcement that the outbreaks are over, in line with the dates fixed by the subcommittee on surveillance, epidemiology, and laboratory testing, is made by the governments of the affected countries in close collaboration with WHO and its international partners.
Official announcements for the 2 countries will be made on the WHO website."
"And these dust-size particles can travel far in the wind just like
Rickettsia (See Appl. Rule 4, Tab 8, Page 1, under Mode of Transmission, “airborne organisms
may be carried >1/2 mile downwind;”)." (Right out of my legal brief)
"Airborne infectious disease (AirID). Either: (1) an aerosol transmissible disease transmitted through dissemination of airborne droplet nuclei, small particle aerosols, or dust particles containing the disease agent for which AII is recommended by the CDC or CDPH, as listed in Appendix A, or (2) the disease process caused by a novel or unknown pathogen for which there is no evidence to rule out with reasonable certainty the possibility that the pathogen is transmissible through dissemination of airborne droplet nuclei, small particle aerosols, or dust particles containing the novel or unknown pathogen."
"Greed in drug development"? Why should a drug company be called greedy for not wanting to invest in a product with a market so small that it would never be able to sell it at a price that would enable it to recoup its investment?
One of the vaccines that is in safety testing was developed by a Canadian firm with assistance from the US with money from the Department of Defense.
The other is a GlaxoSmithKline product. GSK also has a malaria vaccine in the pipeline and has donated money and medications to the Ebola control effort.
"GSK acquired this Ebola vaccine candidate through the acquisition of a biotechnology company, Okairos, in May 2013 and has since been working with the US National Institutes of Health to develop this vaccine candidate in response to the threat of Ebola."
"The UK-led trials are being supported by funding from an international consortium involving the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the UK Government."
"Since the start of the outbreak in March, we have donated £430,000 (about $680,000) in cash contributions for the three most affected countries: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. These donations include £350,000 to Save the Children, our long-standing partner in the region, to scale up work with frontline healthcare workers to maintain the delivery of essential health services and tackle the outbreak of Ebola."
"In the world’s Least Developed Countries we have committed to reinvest 20% of our profits back in to improving the healthcare infrastructure in those countries This investment will contribute to a wider goal across all of our community investment programmes to improve access to healthcare for 20 million under-served people by 2020 (vs. 2012)."
GSK also has a facility in Spain dedicated to research in "neglected tropical diseases."
How does anyone fix these countries except the people in these countries themselves?
What does Dr. Margaret Chan expect the world to do?
Medical supplies sent to Sierra Leone sat on the docks, held hostage because the materials were obtained by a rival to the person in power. I can find no update, so the container may be still sitting there.
That is a very comprehensive response. There are numerous examples of small markets where governments sponsor or ask companies to develop expensive drugs. Some are reimbursed and some are not. It is seen as a component of corporate responsibility and while I understand the arguments against from the companies point of view, good will towards others is seen as a universal good.
As an example Infliximab was developed by Johnson and Johnson at the request of the Federal Government for Crohns Disease. Not a large market but the suffering it caused was dramatic in young people. So J&J began Centocor which over years developed a medication Remicade which is now a guzillion $ success for many forms of Crohns, arthritis, and spawned the "next" generation of anti TNF medications. So there is potential value in these risks.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.