New Ebola epidemic

There is an Ebola outbreak in Guinea which hasn't had an outbreak before. BBC calls this an epidemic, and it could be getting to epidemic stage, although perhaps the world medical community will get it under control soon. Doctors and supplies are flying in at this moment. If I remember, the largest previous Ebola outbreak was a little over 200 cases, but there are enough cases in this one that it could turn out to be more.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26701733

The important point is that the world's governments aren't funding enough research on finding a vaccine and cure for Ebola. There could have been a crash research program going ten years ago, and if we had started spending a few billion dollars a year then, we would probably be safe or close to safe now. As it is, we have no protection, and another mutation or two could turn Ebola into something that spreads through the air. The only thing protecting us is that the Ebola virus is too fragile to spread through the air at the moment. But all it needs to do is have a mutation or two which make it less fragile. If we did have a world Ebola pandemic, it would kill more than half of the world's population.

The Gross World Product is about 60 trillion dollars per year, so why the reluctance to spend a few billion dollars a year on a crash Ebola research program? Another way of looking at this is that the world population is about 7 billion, so even several billion spent for Ebola research would be less than one cent per person in the world. There are many things that people spend more than 1 cent a year on which are less important that profecting humanity from Ebola.

 

One plane flight from a cess pool country away from a major city epidemic..

 

Unless that flight is Malaysia Air

 

Other diseases would t be fixed then. The aids researchers might work on small impact Ebola instead of near pandemic HIV etc... The trade off is not as simple as you claim.

Besides, ebola vaccines are on the way. They are in regulatory testing phases. Many will die while the bureacrats get their paper work in order. There are many diseases like this. Because of regs we are always 10 years or so behind in medicine.

 

It's not a trade-off. We can always educate more researchers. In fact, China is graduating about 6 million students per year from her universities. We could expand research on everything immediately just by hiring some of those Chinese graduates. Then, another way to expand is to have a top scientist as a supervisor of several researchers who are less skilled, but can follow directions.

Note that just being in a testing phase with some possible vaccine doewn't yet mean we have a vaccine. Often, something people think might work as a vaccine turns out to not work after all. A number of hoped for HIV vaccines have failed, mainly because the HIV virus keeps changing. Malaria vaccines have suffered a similar fate because the malaria organism also keeps changing. For something like that, we also need some new breakthroughs in basic research.

Notice that Ebola also mutates rapidly.

We have been doing a terrible job with medical research. About 15 years ago, when I did a survey of researchers and research grants, of four good research applications which passed all levels of evaluation and which looked promising, only one was actually funded. Now, only one good research grant application in seven ends up receiving funding. Many of the ones which haven' been funded over the years would almost certainly have produced new discoveries.

 

There is no limit to the amount of resources that can be poured into this? How long does it take to raise a medical researcher? Did you count all that in your 7b? What about the vaccines that already exist?

 

The OP is alarmist in that this appears to be just another Ebola outbreak. It is almost too deadly, so any sort of modern containment tends to stop it spreading pretty quickly. What is true is that an attenuated mutation would be much more dangerous: a longer incubation period would allow for a more spreadable disease (a true epidemic).

As for the lack of major funding for an Ebola vaccine, currently Ebola is solely a hot zone disease that shows no signs of adapting to more temperate conditions. This puts it further down on the priority list of most Western nations, who are not noted for their longterm realistic assignment of monies anyway (democracy distributes spending based on political interests rather than on rationality).

 

Sir, that's a bit harsh and mean-spirited.

Even if it becomes a pandemic and spreads to America (like AIDS did), as compassionate, socialist Americans we should consider it an honor to share our diseases with one another. It's the true patriotic and socialist experience. We're all in this world of one big socialist family now.

 

Yeah, and we need to send that money to the Crimea. We must protect those brave Freedom Fighters and descendants of the largest slave traders in the world before Africa. Otherwise they will be overrun by the evil and oppressive Russians with their cheap energy. Think of it, old people not having to eat dog food in order to stay warm in the 9 month winter, Oh, the horror.

Yeah, like over here it would just kill everyone in Florida and lower CA, no biggy. There is some controversy as to whether as to disease can be "too deadly" to spread easily. Modernity, AFAICT would make a disease more likely to spread quickly than otherwise. What if a planeload of passengers starts dropping dead as they exit taxicabs on Park Avenue

So now you want to quarantine whole countries? But what would stop people from flying to other countries, then here? Ah. now we see, one more step to the conservative utopia. An American Sakoku, Land of the Free and nobody gets in or out

 

Every virus could be a mutation or two away from killing off half the planet. That is the most tired argument for research that exists.

 

Ebola is not that dangerous. It does not infect you through the air, only through fluids and close contact. It also has never much victims. Its always very concentrated on small regions, so i don´t see the danger?

 

Earth needs a good enema anyway...

 

I don't disagree....just as long as it is not me and mine getting flushed....

 

Yes and Ebola also kills 90% of its victims which further limits it's spreading.

 

When you say "funding" and "finding", and then follow up with "we"... who exactly are you refering to?

 

In terms of money, research is more of an investment than an expenditure. If we look at the aggregate return on research in terms of added income to our economies, research returns in the long run more than it costs. Without past research we would still have an economy like 2000 years ago, and we wouldn't be able to treat most diseases and serious accidents. People 2000 years ago had an average lifespan in the area of half as long as we live now. So there is in fact no limit to the amount of resources that can be poured into research because that spending will earn a profit. There are limits on how many researchers we could have. Many people don't have the ability to do adequate research. But we are a long way from tapping the skills of those who could do research.

 

I agree, We had the wherewithal to eliminate Smallpox, and we have the same with Ebola/Marburg.

 

The reason it isn't spreading well is that the developed world sends in doctors, and warns people in the area to stop touching one another. The medical response is very rapid. If it weren't for that emergency medical response, Ebola would spread. During the last Ebola outbreak, the news reported a comment that it looked like a couple of cases had been transmitted through the air, but researchers weren't sure.

In any case, I think we probably still have a decade or two, perhaps. That gives us time to get an emergency research program going.

 

This is true; however a form of haemorrhagic fever has been successful in killing people in Germany (Frankfurt and Marburg), and also the former Yugoslavia. Viruses are nothing if not adaptable.

 

I'm just saying that I'm a human too. The we is something brotherly

Of course, in terms of funding specifics, I am talking about nations can can afford to do research.

It won't happen of course, but my wistful wish is that all nations would decide to really commit to peace, and then use their current military budgets to fund all kinds of research which would help us all --- that "we" again. Just think what an extra trillion dollars a year in research funding could do for everyone.

 

Really? You evidently forgot the H1N1 Influenza pandemic of 1918. Between 50 million and 100 million died, worldwide. That's approaching one third the population of America, and almost a century later we still don't have a cure. http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/195/7/1018.long
A tired argument? I should get some education if I were you.

 

None of that changes that pretty much any virus can be a mutation or two away from wiping out most or all of the people. Yes it is a tired argument. It is used every time there is something of concern. It is even used in relation to killer bacteria. We play the odds. When it becomes a problem, we address it. If it is not a problem for us currently, then it is someone else's job to address it.

 

A virus that kills is a total failure. It destroyes itself.

 

This intrigues me because I found the only protection we have from virus's (not to mention cancer), is nutrition, especially vitamin C, and it wasn't known at the time... not that it is today. Also vegetables and fruits were not readily available in off seasons and patients weren't fed intravenously. I mean how can a sick person get well if they are not eating?

 

This is an outrage.

There is no excuse, none, for the people of Guinea not to be doing active research to cure Ebola outbreaks.

Since 1958, indigenous Africans took over the Nation from colonial Europeans, that of course only wanted to keep them down. Now that they've had over 55 years of freedom, they should've gotten their act together by now and taken care of their people in their new paradise.

How many more years will the curse of the White man last?