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Security concern halted Wis. Ebola study - Boston.com
Last modified on 2007-10-14 20:00:31 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Security concern halted Wis. Ebola study - Boston.com
How the hell could a leading researcher of infectious diseases not know that Ebola research is limited to only bio-safety level 4 labs. For goodness sakes, I know that I’m not an epidemiologist. He must have been out of his mind to be working on Ebola in bio-safety level 3 conditions.
Just in case you all haven’t read stacks of books about Ebola, the ever-useful wikipedia explains the four bio-safety levels (BL). Ebola has been classified as BL 4 since it was discovered. Since it’s highly infections and very deadly and there is no known cure and not much treatment for it. (Treating a person infected with Ebola is quite tricky. Mainly because once a person presents symptoms of Ebola infection, it will only be 7 to 14 days until they die from it. Hard to treat something that kills so quickly.)
The US doesn’t have many BL 4 equipped labs. Wikipedia claims that we have at least eight BL 4 facilities and, when I first got interested in Ebola, there were less than four BL 4 labs in the US.
As always, if you ever want to learn more about Ebola, I suggest starting with the phenomenal book that jump started my Ebola obsession. The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story
Congo Ebola Outbreak Threatens to Be Most Serious in Years - washingtonpost.com
Last modified on 2007-09-18 23:42:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Congo Ebola Outbreak Threatens to Be Most Serious in Years - washingtonpost.com
Anyone who knows me knows that I have been obsessed with Ebola for the past eleven years. I’ve read everything ever written about it and am a one-woman encyclopedia of Ebola. Which is why the Congo Ebola Outbreak has made my month (although I’m sorry for everyone who has died, of course).
But am I the only person wondering what strain of Ebola is killing people in the Congo? I can’t find any information about it anywhere and that’s just NOT COOL. The World Health Organization had issued a small new release about the outbreak: Ebola haemorrhagic fever in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and not even WHO discusses what strain of Ebola it is.
I’m thinking that it’s Ebola Sudan, which kills a little over 50% of those infected with it (which is about the rate of death for the Ebola cases in the Congo, hence my theory that it’s Ebola Sudan). If it were Ebola Zaire, which kills 90% of those infected, then there would be a whole lot more dead people. Odds are against it being Ebola Côte d’Ivoire, which is highly deadly for animals, and has only one known human infection (a scientist who was performing an autopsy on an infected chimpanzee contracted the virus). I like to think of Ebola Côte d’Ivoire as being simply another version of Ebola Reston (named after Reston, Virginia), which is very deadly for animals, but does no damage to humans.
See? I told you I was obsessed with Ebola. Here’s an odd fact for you: Ebola got it’s name from the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) because it was close to the site of the first recognized Ebola outbreak in 1976.
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