Thursday 9 October 2014

Ebola hits the West

The current outbreak of Ebola is the worst in history, officially it's no longer just an outbreak; because of the levels of infection and the way it's settled into the area it has hit, it has been officially designated an epidemic. With the ease and volume of international travel these days sooner or later it was bound to escape from its heartland in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and a few other parts of western Africa, and make its way around the world. So far foreign nationals who caught the disease in Africa have been taken home for treatment in their homelands, like the USA and Britain, but now we have the first case of an actual infection in the West, a nurse on a containment ward at Madrid in Spain, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-29543924. Teresa Romero somehow contracted the virus while treating a pair of missionaries who caught the illness. She now has the full blown disease and people she has been in contact with are being quarantined. The authorities want to destroy her dog and there's a campaign to save him. The hospitals in Africa treating Ebola patients have been given over £100 million by the World Health Organization, but they still lack methods and experience in the field of containment. Hospitals in the West are better equipped. I myself took part in quarentine drills when I was a hospital porter. I've never had to deal with a real situation like an Ebola outbreak, but I'm trained in the use of the personal protective clothing like these suits, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29518703. It turns out that Nurse Romero might have accidentally touched the bare skin of her face with her gloves while removing her protective suit. This could be the reason why she caught the illness. Actually we can only hope it's that simple because there are a few stories going round claiming that this new Ebola epidemic might be far worse than the previous ones because this is a brand new strain of the virus which transmits itself far more easily than previous ones; for example see: http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112. This is a revision on what I wrote in the background article below and it's extremely worrying because we've been told so far by the experts that Ebola can only be caught contagiously by direct contact with body fluids. For the virus to go airborne would put it in the same infection league as influenza and colds, but far more serious of course. As I've said in the background article below, I suspect that Ebola might be a biological warfare weapon, in which case, if a new more virulent breed of Ebola virus exists, did it originate in the deep forests of darkest Africa, or was it bred in a laboratory at Porton Down and Fort Detrick?
It feels a bit like we're entering a scenario that resembles that of the 1995 film Outbreak, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj9SUJdpJS4. This film reveals that one of the consequences of a major spreading of a deadly disease would be that the government would have to call a national emergency which could involve martial law. In fact it's just been announced that David Cameron is sending a naval auxiliary hospital ship and 750 British troops to the Ebola ridden nations of western Africa to assist in containing the illness, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29542129. It is the perfect situation for anybody in government who might be plotting to overthrow free, democratic rule and replace it with a police state. At present the only treatment for Ebola is to keep the patient well hydrated and fed, and hope that the disease passes. With the best care they have roughly a 50% chance of survival; without it the death toll can be as high as 80 to 90%. There is no vaccine available, but guess what? The pharmaceutical companies are working on one, see: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/07/health/ebola-vaccine-ethics/. At the moment the government is having trouble promoting vaccines like MMR and the flu jab. As I relate in the background link below, I agree with Dr Len Horowitz that vaccines would make the perfect delivery system for a biological weapon. The uptake might be questionable for something that could keep you in bed for a few days, but who's going to say no to the prospect of safety from a haemorrhagic fever that kills you from internal bleeding and organ failure? We must be on our guard in case this is the ultimate agenda behind the Ebola epidemic.

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