So a few months ago the country was enthralled with the idea of a few patients, infected with the Ebola virus, coming to the United States. Up until this point, we had been safe from Ebola due to the fact that bats can’t fly over the Atlantic. Some people were completely indifferent, while others had seen Outbreak one too many times. Most were a healthy mix, somewhere in between, but what bothered me the most was both the lack of education and the poor information that was spreading more virulently than the virus could ever hope to.
First, I want to stress that I am a nurse, not a virologist, and hopefully throughout my post you will see that I am not pretending to be one. I have a Bachelor’s in Nursing and am currently a graduate student. I have worked extensively with Infectious Disease Specialists. I have been exposed to almost every infectious disease known to the modern world. I have taken courses in Biology, Microbiology, Anatomy, Physiology, Pathophysiology, Advanced Pathophysiology, Pharmacology, and an assortment of others. However, I am not and will not pretend to be an expert, just an experienced professional. When it comes to an epidemic of any sort, my first focus is on the patient, protecting and healing them, my second focus is on protecting the community. I don’t care about which strain does what, or what we can do with in lab. As a nurse, I concern myself with the current patient and future possible patients. I feel the first thing we should examine is Ebola itself. It is foreign to the US, both literally and figuratively. What it does to people and how it harmonizes with nature are both things that most westerners have little concept of. It is a virus, not a bacteria. This means that it is not its own organism. It is actually much smaller and basic than you can imagine. It is nothing more than a few pieces of DNA/RNA and some proteins. No cell wall, no cytoplasm, no metabolic functions. This is both their advantage and their downfall. Viruses require a host. For this example I will use the HIV virus. HIV gets into the human body and invades the host’s white blood cells, T4 cells to be exact but I won’t get that involved. The proteins help get the virus into the cell and those few small sequences of DNA/RNA write themselves into the host DNA/RNA. Now instead of the white blood cell attacking invaders, it is nothing more than an HIV factory. All of its metabolic functions are redirected at producing more of the virus, which pours out of the white blood cell like a sieve until eventually the host cell dies. This is why HIV infected patients have poor immune systems. The virus re-writes the DNA of the host cells. This is not something we can stop. New viruses are pouring out of the white blood cells at a rate of millions a day. We cannot filter them out. We cannot “kill” a little chunk of DNA and we don’t know enough about the human genome to correct the DNA sequences. This is why a lot of viral infections like HIV, Herpes, and Hepatitis are life long infections. HIV invades the white blood cells, Herpes invade the nerve roots, and Hepatitis invades the liver.
Now that we have a better grasp of viruses, we will focus on Ebola a bit more. In tropical Africa, Ebola naturally lives in bats. It is nice to the bats and doesn’t cause them many issues. It is rumored that there are many viruses humans carry our entire lives and have no idea because they show zero symptoms. Therefore, they have never been studied. If this sounds crazy, just remember that it was in recent years the we discovered there was a virus behind cervical cancer. A virus that men can carry and spread without ever knowing they have it. Where the problem arises is that in tropical Africa, people like to eat bats. Sometimes they get infected with Ebola and it spreads. This process is called Zoonosis and can be true of bacteria or viruses. Racoons carry Rabies, Armadillos carry Leprosy, Birds carry the Flu, Bats carry Ebola.
When I said Westerners don’t really understand Ebola, the primary aspect that I am talking about is the patient. We don’t ever see what Ebola does. Our media is too censored, we hear how many died, and see people in haz-mat suits. Speaking of suits, we’ve all seen the pictures. Rubber gloves are adequate for AIDS and hepatitis, a simple mask (N95) stops Tuberculosis, but this requires space suits, just keep that in mind when you think its no big deal. So here is what happens when you catch Ebola, I figure you’re getting bored with reading right about now, so I’ll spice it up. First the virus gets into your system, I’ll elaborate on that later. Then, it hangs out for a few days, even up to 21, growing, multiplying at a rate of millions a day, and guess what, you’re infectious. Now at this point it would pretty much require a straight blood to blood interaction so the only real threat here is for IV drug users who share needles. Just like with the flu or hand foot and mouth disease, you can be spreading it to others before you show a symptom*(apparently not many see the *, so please read the elaboration at the bottom). Remember, nurse mind set, protect the community. At first it’s not bad, little nausea, some sweating, diarrhea, much like a stomach bug. But then the virus really starts to build up in your liver and adrenal glands, after it has saturated your blood cells, the lining of your vessel, your skin, and bones. Hepatocellular necrosis occurs, which is fancy term for your liver starts to decompose.Your liver is what regulates blood clotting. This causes your blood either clot up and turn to jelly in your veins, stay liquid and bleed profusely, or a combo of both. The adrenal glands then do the same, causing your blood pressure to drop. This requires lots of IV fluids to keep your circulating volume up. At the same time inflammatory cytokines are released which causes vascular leakage. Cells don’t do a good job of holding things together so it all becomes a bloody goop. Anywhere in your body that blood vessels are shallow, like your nose, ears, gums, throat, GI tract, urethra, vagina, rectum, all start oozing fluids and bleeding because the tissues that normally keep it contained are disintegrating. So now you bleed from every orifice, including your eyeballs. Every time someone or something touches you, your tissue gets damaged which further the cycle, so a shot in the arm can turn into a massive blood blister. Those who survive are left with massive scarring. Since the adrenals cannot keep your blood pressure up, and you are losing blood and fluids, we have to put IV fluids in to keep you out of hypovolemic shock. This in turn reduces your blood concentration, lowering your oxygen carrying capacity, which causes your heart to race. So you lay in bed, oozing fluids from everywhere, all while feeling like you just ran a marathon, with bloody diarrhea, oh and did I mention pain? Lots and lots of pain, but you can’t have any pain medicine because your liver and kidneys have failed. This why it pains me when I see this outbreak ONLY has a 50% death rate, when in Africa it is up to 90%…ONLY 50%. That is literally worse than cancer, and people are blowing it off. Imagine if cancer was infectious, and you lived in a country with zero cancer, and someone thought it would be a good idea to fly a few people in. I think there would be a different attitude.
The biggest part of the discussion is how Ebola is spread. I will say two things on the topic, no, it is not airborne, and yes, basic hygiene plays a HUGE factor. But while on the topic of whether it is or is not airborne, the definition of an airborne contagion is one that can freely float in the air, survive lengths of time, and infect someone else. VERY few things fit in this category, most have been eradicated, Small Pox, Tuberculosis, Measles. Things that are also NOT airborne, are the flu and the cold. For the flu, you have to come into direct contact with the patients body fluids. How then, do you explain why people catch it and have no idea how. Well for one, people can spread it before they show symptoms, just like Ebola, and one other HUGE factor…droplets….let that word really sink in. The virus may not be airborne, but the droplets are. I’m going to digress for a second and get back to HIV and Hepatitis, while I let droplets dwell in your mind. Everyone knows that HIV and Hepatitis are spread by blood contact, and sexual fluids, I don’t mean a drop of blood on the skin, or even a mucous membrane, it has to get INSIDE of you. This is why only gloves are required. HIV and Hepatitis are not found in urine, stool (Some forms of hepatitis are, but you have to eat the stool to get infected) saliva, sweat, tears, or mucous. This is where some viruses are different. The flu gets into your mucous and other secretions, Ebola tends to stay in the blood, but remember, every one of your bodily fluids are full of blood now. So a person with the flu sneezes, and now millions of little droplets (remember those guys?) shoot out of their nose at nearly mach 1, all across the room, same for a cough, all it takes is a little microscopic droplet to land in your eye, nose, mouth, or the unlikely scenario of an open wound, and you’ve now been infected, because you came in CONTACT with their bodily fluids. I see the word contact thrown around a lot, but most people think of mass amounts of contact with blood, but what they don’t realize is that contact also includes microscopic mucous and saliva droplets, each one chock full of Ebola. Bacteria can survive for long periods of time without a host because they are their own organism. They can feed on just about anything and be happy. Viruses lifespan without a host is much shorter. Their goal is to infect, replicate, and spread, if they cant replicate, they die. Measles only lives 2 hours. But Ebola, depending on what data you look at, can survive for several days.
So with all this information, lets have some role play, so that you can see exactly what this means, to a nurse, in the real world. Imagine it as a cheesy PSA or lifetime movie. You go to see your doctor because its that time of year, you need some blood drawn and refills of your blood pressure med. You sit patiently in the waiting room, thumbing a magazine while your 2-year-old plays with her toys. Like all two year olds, she touches everything, and everything goes in her mouth, toys, pens, her own fingers. She is a 22 lb drool factory and you love her to pieces. You see the doctor, get your goodies, and go home. A week later your angel starts vomiting blood and within 3 days she dies because her heart raced so fast it finally gave up while trying to maintain a blood pressure. Her eyes are blood red and demonic, her skin falls off in sheets. What you don’t know is that 3 days before your visit, someone thought they had the flu. It is October you see and they sneezed while thumbing through that very same magazine you thumbed through. The same thumb you grabbed her pacifier out of your purse with in the waiting room. The people caring for Ebola patients wear space suits, and burn the bodies, yet it still spreads. Here in America, we have much better protocols, and much better hygiene. So if it spreads, it will be contained much better. Still, it spreads prior to symptoms and survives will outside the body, just like the flu. Despite vaccines and good hand washing, thousands still get the flu every year. But while the flu kills 1-2% of its victims, Ebola kills 50% on a good day, and spreads the same way. So please, do not write it off as hype. It is a real thing and it is here.
The case in Dallas has been confirmed. The patient had contact with five children and adolescents prior to admission. Those five kids attend four of the largest schools in Dallas. One sneeze and we could already have thousands of people, who don’t know it yet, infected.
Thank you for reading. Please feel free to comment.
Symptoms* I have had a lot of comments in regards to this. I picked my words carefully, but I never imagined getting thousands of views an hour, or my article getting picked apart, but I will try to elaborate now. I said spread, the virus, I did not say you were contagious. What I meant by this, was the summation of two concepts. To fully explain everything I could write a book, but this is meant to be short and sweet. The first concept is that of a fomite. We have established that the virus can survive for an unspecified amount of time outside the host, and we have established that sneezing/coughing is a perfectly logical method of transmission. So if patient A is infectious/contagious, they sneeze on patient B, but then patient B goes home and picks up their sisters 1 6 month old, who rubs his face, and licks all over your shoulder, he could very well have just orally consumed large quantities of the virus, therefore become patient C. Patient B never got sick, the virus never entered their system, yet they are responsible for spreading the virus to someone else. This is why the 5 exposed kids are so important, there may only be a 2% chance or whatever that they’ll get sick, but if they went to school, and each rubbed up against 500 kids in the hallways, you now have 2500 exposed kids, 50 of which will statistically become infected, 25 of which will probably die. No I do not have a source for the 2%, that is just an EXAMPLE number used to represent the relatively low likelihood of contracting the virus if exposed, granted the R0 factor of R2 is correct. Remember, heal the patient, PROTECT the community. The second concept of this is defining “symptom”. Lets assume it means anything other than your baseline condition. That means the first signs of being contagious, are also the more mild symptoms, sneezy, achy, nausea, flu-like symptoms. So who is going to wake up, feel a little under the weather, and think, crap, I have Ebola, better get quarantined, no, THAT’S how you start fear mongering and mass panic. Again, flu season is upon us, the initial stages of Ebola are like the flu, and its human nature to be in denial, so many people, if infected, would hope its just the flu and wait it out, they are not showing symptoms indicative of Ebola, but they ARE symptomatic of something, and therefore, by the CDC definition, would be contagious. Its also normal procedure for people to be symptomatic BEFORE seeking medical care, so technically, everyone will be contagious, BEFORE knowing they have Ebola. But like I said before, I omitted this lengthy explanation because I didn’t feel it was necessary for the point of the article.
ADDENDUM: Sadly, I feel the need to point out that the title of this blog is “Ebola, A Nurse’s Perspective”, not “A Nurse’s Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse”, or “How to Become an Ebola Expert in 15 minutes”. It could just as well be “Hamburgers, A Chef’s Perspective” and no one would be hounding me over grammar, a misplaced comma, or wanting citations as to why I say it should be on the grill 5 minutes per side of 7 minutes per side. The point is those things are irrelevant to the goal of the article, this is MY perspective (a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.) I don’t have to prove anything, the point of my article is to take what the uneducated (in a medical sense) journalists say, what the talking heads on TV say, and then let you know what the people say who are on the front lines. That’s like discrediting your grandads account of what happened when he stormed Normandy beach, because its not what your history teacher told you. Have I experienced Ebola first hand? Nope, have I experienced a WHOLE lot of other things that the majority of the population has not? You bet your ass I have, and I felt the need to take the time to hopefully help other people out a little. So please keep that in mind, I’m not perfect, but my experiences are my experiences, and I wanted to share them with you, to let you inside the head of a nurse for a minute.
dtolar 
Thank you for your education on ebola. I also work in a hospital cleaning patients rooms and dismissed patients rooms. Know as EVS. Environmental Services. We are the first line of defense against all germs and infectious diseass. .
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Thank you so much for posting this article Dustin. I am also a Nurse Practitioner, always a Nurse and you made this so easy to understand. God bless.
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Infectious disease,(sorry i posted to early). We have had a lot of education at work to keep us up today on how to protect ourselves and others. So I appreciate everything and anything anyone can teach me about it to protect myself and others.Thank You
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I found your article educational and understood your perspective. Thank you for posting it.
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Thank you for your service and for sharing your gift of teaching! I feel so blessed to have had the priviledge to read your information and to gain the knowledge you have shared. Your sharing this informatiom and creating such awareness should receive great rewarda and absolute blessings beyond measure; for it is my belief that you have saved many lives! God bless you – MUTLTIPLIED! Thank you again.
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Thank you for your service and for sharing your gift of teaching! I feel so blessed to have had the priviledge to read your information and to gain the knowledge you have shared. Your sharing this informatiom and creating such awareness should receive great rewards and absolute blessings beyond measure; for it is my belief that you have saved many lives! God bless you – MULTIPLIED! Thank you again.
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Great job! Thanks! I’ve been saying this from the beginning.
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Thank you so much for sharing.
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As a former Hospice Nurse, my specialty was in 2 areas of expertise: geriatrics and HIV. The risks were real, there, every day. Everything was handled with utmost delicacy and medical precision so as not to spread the said infection I was handeling. I love how you have explained the Ebola virus, from a Nurses perspective. We can only try to educate those who will listen and none other.
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Thank you, very educational and very understandable for clueless people like myself. Ireally learned a lot. And so sorry ignorant low lifes are trying to pick apart your entry. Definitely unnecessary. Much love ❤
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Well written article. I have been monitoring the Ebola cases here in the U.S. I must say as a nurse it is definatley scary and I appreciate your reality on how it could be spread quickly without people knowing.
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Why have the people in government purposely exposed us to this problem rather than try to contain it elsewhere. Will this be the epidemic like we had in the early 1900’s. I feel very bad for those that suffer from this disease but why are we tempting fate at a reckless pace.
I personally wonder what is happening in this country anymore.
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As a fellow nurse, was glad to read your perspective. It was warranted and well done
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I am also a nurse, I work in a urgent care facility where we see hundreds of patients a day. It is terrifying to me to be at work. It is flu season! 9/10 patients that come in this time of year has a lot of the same symptoms that the Ebola victims present with! I just have to put my faith in God that he will protect me as I’m doing a job caring for the ill. Thank you for sharing! Don’t defend your explanation on your views, you explained it perfectly! Thanks Again and God Bless You and keep you safe!
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Thank you for your article. I appreciate the simplicity of it and I also feel reinforced in my knowledge on the matter being correct. So much of the media and CDC has played this down and I am just waiting and hoping that the transmission that I expect does not come to fruition. I am also concerned about how our nurses keep getting thrown under the bus by media. We as professionals all know just how meticulous we would be about not breaching protocols. And I have a lot of qualms about only needing googles, gowns, masks, and gloves while biohazard suits seems to be the proper attire in Africa. Are we really getting enough protection???
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Dtolar, well written, I couldn’t have said it better. I think your perspective is spot on. I feel the same way you do. I think we as a populous need to wake up, and wake up fast. This is at our doorstep, and I feel that while we may tout ourselves as the most advanced medical system in the world, we are inept to deal with this virus on a widespread scale. While the CDC states that we have all the tools necessary to contain and treat, I worry lack of transparency will hurt our abilities. There seems to be contrasting views even on mode of transmission, a few months back it was only considered bloodborne. Now I wonder, is the virus mutating that fast (rumored to be mutating faster than it has historically), or was it labeled bloodborne to downplay the seriousness. I feel the CDC grasps the magnitude, but fears the panic. I also question the R value, as these statistics don’t account for fomite exposure. Great article.
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Thanks for posting it I work in the hospital and my job is to transport patients to the procedure or different units so now I understood how to protect myself and others. Once again thank you for telling us little bit about Ebola disease. Which is killed a thousands of people especially in West Africa.
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Wonderful, well written, understandable information!!!! Thank you!!!! Very very true, most all people push through the first day or so of the flu, young and old. Students are rewarded with no midterm if they have a certain grade and no absents, therefore they go because even a Dr’s note does not keep them from having to take their test. Majority of the work force is in the same boat, x amount of missed days equals temenation while no missed days is rewarded. We as a society need to hear this information, whether student or employee of any type of business which deals with the public, everyone is at risk of exposure. Droplets are all it takes to catch or spread any type of virus!!! Thank you again!!!!!
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WHO finally admits sneezing and coughing can spread Ebola
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/047250_Ebola_transmission_sneezing_coughing.html#ixzz3G7yua8Q2
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Thank you for this!
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Thank you for the informative article. How can we get the government to close the borders? Putting health care professionals at the airport to take a persons temperature seems a waste of time if a person can be a carrier. If a person has been in an area where there was Ebola I feel bad for them but we are taking a chance of infecting many people letting them in our country. Also I commend the doctors that chose to go to Liberia and do humanitarian work. They knew the consequence. Why would they choose to come into the US to be treated knowing they could pass this to people in US. It kind of defeats their original goal. God help us during this time. They say don’t panic…I am not panicking…i am preparing myself mentally, spiritually and storing supplies. I will not depend on the government to bail me out of this problem. So far their track record has been disappointing.
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think of the ramifications of closing the borders. It’s nearly impossible to do; there are thousands of airports and flights that come in and out of the country every day. Closing the international borders and shutting down flights would lead to massive job layoffs and airport disruption. From a business perspective it is a disaster and our economy would take a gigantic hit.
Or perhaps you mean simply closing the borders to flights to/from infected countries? What happens when a person from Liberia flies to Germany, and then from Germany to the US? Are we then to demand to see all travel itineraries from all international passengers? Closing the borders is a ridiculous, impossible thing to suggest. What’s to stop a person who leaves Africa, spends a few days in Europe or elsewhere, and then flies to the US, without exhibiting any symptoms until a few days after arrival here — meaning they left Africa without knowing they had the virus. And what if this is a white person. How on earth could you reasonably stop such a scenario from happening?
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Thank u so much for this ! I think everyone needs to read this !!!
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Great summary. You laid out everything in a logical and thought provoking manner. More than our government has done so far. That is the problem with this current situation. When the CDC candy coats things to appease the public, then are quickly proven wrong, it erodes public confidence. Then the lunatic fringe take on the situation starts to seem much more plausible. Panic and confusion sets in and a manageable problem becomes a disaster. I work in an Emergency Department and this situation is very concerning to me. At this point we lack concrete facts and an effective SOP for dealing with this. The government seems so lackadaisical about everything. There was more hype about swine flu. I don’t believe this is the end of humanity, but I know without stricter rules about travel, and securing open borders that many healthcare workers will pay the price. The case in Dallas was handled terribly in hind sight. Look at how many resources and how much money this has cost just for one confirmed case. What happens when there are 50 or a 1000?
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Thank you so much for posting this. When I found out that the virus had made it to the U.S I started searching for information on it but none of the articles were as easy to understand as this one. Thank you for shedding a little light on the subject.
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Oh come on you are very informative and smart but this very detailed description of death will have people locked in their houses. Ok everyone dont go to work dont go to foodstore or school functions or parties cause you might accidentally pick up a magazine or can of soup on a shelf that someone just sneezed on. You have a better chance of hitting the lottery. And statistics of the flu and ebola death rates are incomparable at this time, millions get the flu 2% die (which is usually elderly or immune compromised) ebola 10 people get it 5 die. So yea its 50% at this time but look at the odds. Your adding to peoples insecurities. Relax everyone its ok to go foodshopping or bank or get gas its ok to kiss your kid and its ok if your baby bites your finger or sucks your cheek by accident. Live your life just maintain hygeine, handwashing etc. We cant all quarantine ourselves.
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You have no idea what you are talking about. I am an ICU nurse, the flu does NOT only kill the elderly and weak. Last year in my unit (big Houston hospital) our 9 deaths from the flu were all males under the age of 50, many in there 40’s and 2 in their 30’s with NO health issues other than they DID NOT get the flu shot. So maybe you should become better informed before you make statements. This article was from a nurses prospective! Read more! Get better informed.
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I am a nurse as well thank you. I said which is USUALLY the elderly or immune compromised. Go lock yourself up then but i refuse to hear of a 3 year olds skin falling off to try and scare people to death. Its unecessary. There are so many diseases out there this isnt the first or last scare. Im very well informed and my first statement was how smart and informative this nurse is but to say your child might get it cause you went to dr or frighten people so much they are scared to do anything is just what the media does. It needs to stop
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Or maybe your nursing skills just suck…none of my flu patients died. I also did not get the shot and have never had the flu. I went back and re read my article twice, and cannot find anywhere that I listed mortality demographics for the flu.
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I am so sorry, I was not replying to you (dtolar) but to Jonnell that said only the sick and elderly die from the flu. I thought you article was absolutely great and forwarded to all my friends, family and other nurse friends. All are now spreading your word too. My grown daughter read it today, and she thought it was the best thing she has read about Ebola. But, by the way, those flu patients were dying within hours of arrival to the ICU, so I don’t think it was my bad care that caused their deaths. Sorry for the miscommunication, I was just trying to address that not only the weak and elderly die from the flu.
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Oh OK….I was wondering Lol….and my comment wasn’t mean to be taken seriously about your care.
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Dear Dtoler,
Please do not let your decision to not be immunized affect the common sense of others. Glad you did not get the flu.
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so a question , if im at the airport and the infected person sneezes on me , i dont get infected cause i didnt injest the sneeze , i go home and my husband puts his face, lips whatever all over this persons snot, and the kisses me does that mean i could become infected ?? and also, a very good report dumb down just enough for us who dont grasp crazy ass medical terminology i really apprieciate the article thanks!!
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What about insects if they bite someone with this and they survive to bite another person do you think it can be spread as such? Your information was astounding as I was ignorant to this virus. I was able to comprehend when you essentially explained it the way you did. Thank you for the time you spent in doing so. You should be commended.
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I read your article the day you first posted and wanted to come back and thank you for a clear and practical and honest article. At the time, this article was the only one I found that really spoke to the reality of the dangers and while the CDC in my opinion is lying to the US public in regards to downplaying the dangers of Ebola and the actual disease. Even the -W.H.O. contradicts the CDC and admits Ebola can spread via coughing, sneezing and by touching contaminated surfaces! Contrary to the CDC, medical experts state the CDC is wrong, all US Hospitals can’t treat Ebola safely. There were reports from the HHS that they were already screening at airports for Ebola however, they contradict themselves by stating “where Now we have the Texas Ebola man dead, his family is under quarantine. His nurse of only 4 years has contracted Ebola and the CDC quickly scapegoated and blamed her for breach of protocol ecuse me but this is even more proof US hosptials and support personal are not prepared for this disease outbreak that could have been avoided if Obama stopped air travel from the three small states in W. Africa! Now we see, her boyfriend is getting looked at and other cases of possible Ebola are increasing all over the world as travel is still open into these Ebola ravaged countries. In my opinion travel must now be restricted from the few west Africa countres. Obamas administration states that volunteers wlll not be able to travel there however that is not true, charter planes have always travelled supplies and volunteers into catastrophes! Obama has already forced 3,000 of our military into the Ebola countries so the military can travel supplies as well! President Obama must take the security of our country and citizens FIRST! He must secure our borders and stop travel from the three West Africa Countries with widespread transmission from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone! It really is this easy and why he and his administration refuses makes you think twice about his motives. It is election year and the Democrats are known to never let a good Crisis go to waste…. Hilary Clinton has already attempted to attempt to falsley blame the budget on CDC Ebola research. That was debunked when the actual budget of the CDC was researched by Bobby Jindal! “CDC since 2010 has increased it’s budget by 567 Million dollars. Would you like to know where Obama is spending this money? Obamas CDC under Obamacare ACT directs hundreds of millions of dollars for the Centers for Disease Control to fund “non-essential” programs that give grants for things like improving sidewalks and street lighting, While the Centers, or CDC, is well funded, much of the money has been diverted from programs to fight infectious diseases and directed to “programs far afield from the CDC’s original purpose,” such as the Prevention and Public Health Fund,the community transformation grant program received three times as much money as what was appropriated to fight infectious disease.”
“While there’s certainly a place for the kind of projects funded through the community transformation grant program” Jindal states, “they should be funded by states, localities or private charities”
Country Total Cases Laboratory-Confirmed Cases Total Deaths
Guinea 1350 1097 778
Liberia 4076 943 2316
Sierra Leone 2950 2593 930
Total 8376 4633 4024
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thank you for your words.
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so it is from bats
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I am a firefighter/paramedic and a first responders to many different calls. This articles needs to be read in every medical field. Great information to have to not only protect the patient and the community but yourself as well. The media is masking so much information which will only lead to increasing the amount of cases. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge and experience.
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I am also a RN and it is refreshing to hear a voice of educated reason in all this rhetoric being thrown around. Not all the news is good, but it paints a much more manageable picture than the press stories would have us believe. Unfortunately, there are individuals in places of power here that see fit to use this event to manipulate the American people’s fear to get what they want. I will not waste my time on them. There are excellent medical personnel in this country who are prepared for such an event that doesn’t include sensationalism solutions.
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Thank you for this honest and informative account of Ebola. The populas must be made aware of the seriousness of this virus. Education is the key to reduce panic and fear so that we all can work together to prevent the spread of this deadly virus. Glossing over the facts does not help at all; we should have learned this from the HIV. Thank you and God Bless you.
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Thank you so much for sharing. And I’m so sorry that you felt the need to defend yourself to so many people nitpicking at your grammar or lack of explanation for anything. I hope you won’t feel the need to do such anymore in the future. You’ve already done so much justice by opening the eyes and minds of your readers! 🙂
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thank you for your perspective, for taking the time to write and share, and for writing it so that people without medical knowledge can easily understand it. After 30 years of practice as an RN. and multiple years of dealing with infectious diseases, I agree with every word you have written.
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Excellent article. Very informative
Thanx for your time and information. God bless and may He place his loving arms around all of us as we go thru this uncertain time!
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a good community service spot… very well presented and factually accurate for the most part.from a technical perspective. certainly spot on from a care-provider perspective.
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This would have been much easier to read if the author had taken a basic course in grammar beforehand. You may be a nurse and therefore educated on the subject matter, but pay someone to write these posts for you because this was terribly written. Also, please stop adding to people’s concerns about Ebola. You mean to educate, but your poor writing skills make this read like a condescending warning. The CDC has better information than you and they have people who can communicate that information better than you can. Stick to nursing and keep your poorly written perspectives to yourself.
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You’re a condescending idiot. It was communicated wonderfully.
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Aaww, thanks
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I am so sorry that she did not have the editing department of the CDC. Everything that CDC staff writes and publishes goes to Editing. Maybe she should have had 2 other people read it before posting it to get the writing errors out of it. There were a few content erros too, but the main message was great. You are trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. Pick it a part if you will, the CDC is charged with decreasing panic, while risking other things. Everyone there has to follow the party line. I have seen patients bleed out due to other reasons right before my eyes while depleating the citys supply of that blood type. There was nothing all the doctors there could do. When you find a patient’s bed full of bloody stool do you thing the doctor is going to clean it up. NO- the nurse will be doing that while the doctor may be writing an article for publication.
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What a great article! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! It is very informative and easy to understand. I am also a healthcare professional, first assistant in the OR, and I am very concerned about this virus. Thanks again for sharing.
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I LOVE your article!!! Thank you so much for explaining all the details of this horrible disease. I work as an RN also…..people don’t understand the things we go through giving care to the community and how much we put our personal well being at risk in doing so. Imagine being the nurse assigned to take care if that first Ebola patient, how scary to know that every day when u go to work u could catch a virus that could kill u! But we all r at that risk as nurses.
Just wanted to say great article, well written and thank u for sharing!
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Thank you so much for posting! I am a nurse too and thoroughly enjoYed your education on Ebola. It was easy to read and definitly can be of much help to the front line readers of the transmission and progression of the disease. Great job
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Great depiction! I too am a nurse, thankfully no longer practicing. I’ve seen studies where this virus lived for 51 days outside the body. The study wasn’t clear to me as for real world stuff but that was enough to tell me there’s a really big storm brewing. Good luck to us all.
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That study was a frozen tissue sample, I think they were testing the viability of storing and shipping samples. In normal conditions the lifespan outside the body is much lower
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Very well written… I totally agree… I’m sharing… Thank you!
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Very well written…online blogs are like just like YouTube…never read the comments! 😀 It will ruin your day. I thought this was a great explanation and reality check. I’m also an RN and I really appreciated this entry. I like how anyone can read this article and gain a better understanding of ebola.
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Thanks 😉
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Thank you. Someone needed to speak up honestly and with educated experience. Perfectly addressed and written.
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I loved this and as an ER nurse for many many years can very much appreciate where you come from. I loved the information. Thank you! And yes it is all so very true, this is real and should not be taken lightly!
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OMG. You should be talking to the president, and anyone else out there dealing with this disease on a global level. You obviously are more informed than the CDC and the WHO. You called it. AIRBORNE. THANK GOD we have people out there like you, informing the public. I am really scared to even go out now…esp if it is airborne…what should I do?
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One thing I think you are missing, although you have a lot of really good stuff, is what is actually happening on the ground. The rates of transmission and pathways are not hypothetical at all, they are dealing with this in West Africa, and so we don’t actually have to guess at numbers as much as you would think. Ebola in West Africa is spreading quickly for a number of reasons. Burial customs in many communities include washing the dead and handling the body, which leads to contact with the fluids that carry the virus. There is also a great deal of misinformation circulating – including that the disease does not exist, and that it is being deliberately spread by the government. This means that people do not come to treatment centers when they get ill, and do not follow basic protocols to stop the spread. Even with that, you don’t have The rates of infection that you use in your example of the school children. There is no information I can find that describes the kind of contact the school children may have had with the infected person. They may just have been in the same store, but either way, it was described by the governor as happening before the victim had symptoms, and so before he was contagious. The paper that is cited as evidence that people can be contagious before symptoms is about chronic norovirus in kidney transplant recipients. This is people that have compromised immune systems from immunosupressants, and I am not sure could be considered representative. Plus the study has only two subjects, and deals more with chronicity than transmission.
So to sum up, the infectious disease protocols in the US are more sophisticated than in West Africa. American hospitals are better set up for containment than West African treatment centres. Americans have marginally better information available about transmission and so are not likely to handle the body of a victim. While a number of Americans believe that Ebola is a plot to kill off democratic voters, almost no one is denying the disease exists. It is highly unlikely that a school child will have come into skin-to-mouth contact with 500 other students in two days, and so they cannot have exposed 2500 students, which means that 50 infections is a seriously inflated estimate, and so the 25 deaths is also highly inaccurate – based on the actual information available.
I applaud your effort to put some actual science into this relatively out of control discussion. I would just have hoped that you would have stuck to scientifically verifiable facts, and the pathways of transmission we can clearly see and document, as opposed to very hypothetical and speculative possibilities for outcomes. I think it is also important to point out that the risk of transmission is higher for health care workers because of the prolonged contact, and the higher likelihood of contact with bodily fluids. There is clearly cause for concern, but the situation is not as dire as you make it out to be, and while it is clearly not your intention to do so, you have given people more fuel for the panic.
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If you had paid attention. You’ll see that the 2500 student comment was an analogy for fomite transmission with a low infection rate, it was an analogy, and clearly stated. You say protocols in the US are better, but so far have failed on every level, Duncan got through the airport, he got in and out of the ER, he was transported via EMS improperly, the nurse got infected, now her boyfriend is hospitalized…. sorry but my faith in the “system” is far from sound. And you are right about one thing, we do things here much differently than in west Africa, but that’s why we can’t predict what will happen here based on what’s happened there. Learn from it? Yes, but otherwise this is a new ball game
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Excellent article explaining so, so much to my fiancé and I. Have heard tons about it in the news but you clarified it extremely well.
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Thank you for sharing your information. The idiots that gripe about grammar and misspelled words did not take their time to share any information with us, You may have saved a few thousand lives due to your concern for the uninformed ! Do not stress over the pompous fools that want to pick on others that are concerned enough to take their time to share their knowledge !!
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Thank you for taking the time to write this and for sharing the knowledge that you have of this virus. I appreciate and value your educated opinion…. this thing is nothing short of downright scary as _ _ _ _
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Lots of incorrect info. Please re-write.
– Graduate Student @ NYU: Epidemiology and Global HC Plolicy
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