Hospital: US Ebola patient in critical condition
Source: AP-Excite
By JAMIE STENGLE
DALLAS (AP) — The lone U.S. Ebola patient is in critical condition, the Dallas hospital that has been treating him reported Saturday.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where Thomas Eric Duncan, didn't provide any further details about his condition and a hospital spokeswoman, Candace White, didn't immediately respond to emails and phone calls. The hospital previously said Duncan was being kept in isolation and that his condition was serious but stable.
Duncan traveled from disease-ravaged Liberia to Dallas last month before he began showing symptoms of the disease.
Health officials said Saturday that they are monitoring about 50 people for signs of the deadly disease who may have had contact with Duncan, including nine who are believed to be at a higher risk. Thus far none have shown symptoms. Among those being monitored are people who rode in the ambulance that transported Duncan back to the hospital before his diagnosis, said Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
FULL story at link.
A hazardous material cleaner arrives at the apartment complex in Dallas, Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, where Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient who traveled from Liberia to Dallas stayed last week. The crew is expected to remove items including towels and bed sheets used by Duncan, who is being treated at an isolation unit at a Dallas hospital. The family living there has been confined under armed guard while being monitored by health officials. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141004/ebola-d502f4a19b.html
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PearliePoo2
(7,768 posts)Not good.
I'm guessing the next announcement will be it.
1dogleft
(164 posts)that's who this guy is
csziggy
(34,131 posts)
quadrature
(2,049 posts)Ebola will become political.
who benefits?
katmondoo
(6,454 posts)that have impeded the hospitals from training for Ebola and other possible epidemics
quadrature
(2,049 posts)Demit
(11,238 posts)Scared people willingly give things up then. They want a daddy to tell them he can make them safe again.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)Demit
(11,238 posts)Maybe it's time for you to stop asking questions & just tell us what you think is going on.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)I also predict that Ebola will become a political football.
Obama said he thinks it is unlikely
that Ebola will come to the US.
Turborama
(22,109 posts)And it looks like you are intent on making it a "political football".
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)You know, the kind who don't understand a word of all this science-y stuff about epidemiology and virology, and get so confused and frightened that they think there are no problems with just denying 350 million Americans the right to travel, plus probably far more who have valid reasons to come here. The kind who wants our troops to come home and sit at the border, shooting dead anybody who sticks a toe across it. The kind who would lock up people with brown skin in concentration camps and sort out the citizenship thing later, if you got in the mood to do so.
I'm sure you're not one of those, though, right? You just misspoke.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)POTUS, huh? Telling sign.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Before this, it was the kids from Central America. Before that the Umbrella, Ketchup and Latte Gates.
Donald Segretti gave it a name, Ratfucking. Check Wikipedia. It's all there. Winning elections since Nixon.
And this hysteria in the media is set up like the Bundy fiasco was. The CDC released info on a vaccine for Ebola in September. But this is all anyone will hear from MSM.
Reid, Sanders, Warren and Obama were making traction on the Koch agenda the week the Bundy fiasco started getting nonstop support on MSM. No one now remembers what the Koch agenda revealed was.
This is the newest shiny POS the media will divert attention with, through the month of October, slanted to make Obama and thus the rest of the Democratic brand, look incompetent and not fit to rule, crooked or just plain evil.
Gohmert says Obama is intentionally bringing Ebola here by way of the medical troops sent to Africa to stop it at the source. So you repeat that and ask why is it being brought here. It's up to you, of course, if you want to believe these people are imported to do us harm.
Consider that most of those who do, claim Obama is illegitimate and must be 'taken out.' That's not the way DU sees these things.
Chemisse
(30,803 posts)That doesn't look good for the Rs.
1dogleft
(164 posts)hospitals and DR's
freshwest
(53,661 posts)
Skittles
(153,111 posts)PUT THE BLAME WHERE BLAME IS DUE
EDUCATE YOURSELF
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Man_With_The_Disease
redruddyred
(1,615 posts)they're run like regular large businesses, remember? training for ebola distracts from squeezing every last drop from their overworked, understaffed employees.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)There are no winners.
mahannah
(893 posts)
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)
Salviati
(6,008 posts)ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)NickB79
(19,224 posts)Ebola kills you by making you bleed out. Your blood pressure crashes as you puke/shit/bleed out all your internal fluids, and you die.
Supportive care is basically just a ton of saline, with blood transfusions when needed.
Then, you just have to wait for the body to clear the virus itself.
It's sobering to see that even the best medical care in the world doesn't give you much better than 50/50 odds of surviving.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)
Chemisse
(30,803 posts)I was wondering, since those who have returned with the disease have all survived - so far.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)'experimental vaccine used on that volunteer a few weeks back? He/she seemed to get better and finally was free of virus.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)The best way to control and eliminate it is through contact tracing, isolation, lather, rinse, repeat. If they develop a safe and effective vaccine, that makes the whole thing a lot easier to pull off.
redruddyred
(1,615 posts)for fucks sake.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)
marble falls
(56,997 posts)blame the President for this, right?
TM99
(8,352 posts)when he first went to the ER, this facility likely will have caused his death due to incompetence and negligence.
So, how many white people have been flown from Africa to the US to undergo miracle treatments? And now a black man is on the verge of death, and I won't be surprised if he does die. This does not instill confidence in the American medical system.
1dogleft
(164 posts)that medicine is gone, this guy is Liberian. You are offensive
heaven05
(18,124 posts)Liberian doesn't matter and the white americans do? Right? Just a question. Medicine gone? Says who? Give me a break please.
This is Texas, also, after all.
1dogleft
(164 posts)what more do you want and there out of medicine
clueless...
1dogleft
(164 posts)sorry
840high
(17,196 posts)redruddyred
(1,615 posts)my manly male doctors have a tendency to talk over me and ignore everything I say.
wouldn't be surprised if dark people were considered "unreliable" as well.
840high
(17,196 posts)fired by me if he ever did that. We work as a team in my health care.
TM99
(8,352 posts)attitudes do not exist in health care?
I work in the mental health field, and I have seen it for over 25 years. It sadly can and does happen. We still have quite a long ways to go with regards to ending sexism, bigotry, racism, homophobia, etc. in this country.
redruddyred
(1,615 posts)even some of the ladies think they are god. going on double digits now and have maybe found two worth their salt.
calimary
(81,099 posts)I first was brought to my mother's gynecologist when I reached "that" age. Didn't care for him much. He was pretty haughty. There came a time when one of my examinations revealed cervical lesions. He recommended a D&C. After the recovery time had ended I had another examination and there were still problems detected. So he recommended in-office cryosurgery. And disappeared from the examining room. Hadn't explained anything to me. I was still a teenager and didn't understand what was going on. Because my mother was a former RN and VERY deferential to doctors and I had only one template to follow here - you just follow the doctor's orders and say "yes sir" and don't question His Almighty Godliness.
Well, I sat there alone in the examining room for quite awhile, until he and his nurse re-entered. He came in wheeling this big silver tank with tubes and wires and dials and knobs and other crap coming out of it and I took one look at that and PASSED THE FUCK OUT.
As I recall, I came to, later, in his regular office. He was sitting behind the desk. Looking shocked and incredulous. He was shocked that my reaction included fainting dead away on the examining table. Utterly stunned. He seemed to be figuring out that this particular patient (i.e.: ME) seems to have needed a little different handling. He apologized and told me in a quiet, measured, seemingly-concerned way that he didn't realize that someone had to EXPLAIN this to me. "I didn't know it had to be explained to you..." He spoke the same way you'd imagine speaking to a kindergarten kid. Well, gee, doc, sorry I ruined your routine. Sorry I forced you to have to take some extra time and provide counseling and for heavens sake, an explanation...
You know what I did? By then I resolved to find MY OWN gynecologist and SHE would be a female. How would a man really know or understand lady parts when he doesn't have them? And he doesn't know how it feels? And he hasn't faced or dealt with the changing conditions women deal with month-to-month. Hell, sometimes day-to-day. I found myself a female gynecologist and I have NEVER, EVER SINCE then, done otherwise.
I will NOT - NOT EVER - see a male doctor about my lady parts. Not EVER. It just makes no sense.
redruddyred
(1,615 posts)sounds like a mistake to me.
dr's need to be questioned, and the bad ones mocked. most of them come from privileged backgrounds in the first place, and med school ain't what it used to be.
valerief
(53,235 posts)wasn't to be "wasted" on a black man, that it had to be saved for the sick white man.
Not saying I believe that, but I must admit it crossed my mind when I read Duncan was getting sicker. How can it NOT cross people's minds in America?
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)to get meaningful statistics about its effectiveness or lack thereof.
I know, it's hard for science deniers to wrap your heads around that.
TM99
(8,352 posts)I am well aware of the science and the zMAPP.
I was highlighting the hubris of most on this board and elsewhere who claim that the exceptional American system is perfectly equipped to deal with this situation regarding Ebola. Several were cured (seemingly miraculously) and yet, as you note, there is not enough zMAPP for the general population, like this man, at least not yet.
Between the normal human incompetence in Dallas and the lack of funding and researching into a 'cure for Ebola' are we truly prepared if this disease gains a foothold here? I don't claim to have the answer, but I am asking the questions & pointing out the hubris of certainity.
eilen
(4,950 posts)had ebola. they did not lie and say they were not exposed and then turned up a some random hospital ED. He might have told them he came from Liberia but did not say hey! my roommate died of ebola! I was exposed!
TM99
(8,352 posts)we do not know if lied. Liberia is saying he did. His family is saying he didn't. He had a visa for a wedding planned months in advance. He went to the local hospital to where his girlfriend is, hardly random. He did say he was from Liberia, and his own family said they called the CDC because of suspicion of Ebola.
Our fabulous medical system is not yet on top of this. And because of that, this man most likely will die. I truly hope not. It gets hard not to see racism, if even subtle and unconscious, when white doctors have received experimental drugs and protocols that saved their lives, and this man, if he dies, is black. Sometimes the perception of racism is in fact racism. Let's see how this turns out and what the actual facts are if and when this man survives.
eilen
(4,950 posts)If this was so "planned in advance" -- why no notice at his job? I think he saw the young woman dying and hightailed it out of there. It's not like Liberians in Liberia did not know what ebola looks like, the symptoms etc. She was sent home from the hospital there because an entire ward devoted to Ebola patients was full.
I think he had no symptoms and thought he was ok... til he got symptoms. Then he appeared to the ED staff, said he was recently in Liberia (in company with fellow Liberians) but did not say-- I was exposed to ebola. I don't know that every emergency department before this has had extensive training on ebola. Some hospitals have a SIRS protocol but that is usually only triggered after admission.
Moostache
(9,895 posts)You get this virus, your organs bleed and liquify and eventually you die.
In some strains, its 80% lethal.
This is no joke, nor is it a political issue unless you are so far gone on either side that you truly wish death on the other side (and your own side in the carnage of an Ebola pandemic)...
There is no way in the world that ANYONE should be allowed to enter the US from Liberia or East Africa without a mandatory 2 week medical quarantine...
CullenBohannon
(64 posts)uppityperson
(115,677 posts)Your body makes lots of little blood clots that plug up capillaries leading to no blood flow to parts of organs. This kills those parts of the organs. Liver, kidneys, brain, digestive tract, etc.
Parts of the lining of your digestive tract can slough off when it is dead. But it is not liquified.
Because the body has made so many blood clots in inappropriate places, you then can bleed easily. The blood vessels leading into those parts have open ends and can bleed. Anywhere you bump gets bruised, and the bruised grow quickly on your skin. And inside your body.
http://www.africareview.com/Special-Reports/-/979182/1472576/-/vhdyxoz/-/index.html
There have been claims that Ebola liquifies the body organs of infected people, but Dr Mbabazi disagrees. Instead, he says that Ebola interferes with the clotting and bleeding mechanisms of the body.
“The symptoms are initially non-specific, but liver function may be impaired, blood clotting functions (coagulation) are dysregulated, septic shock and multi-organ failure occurs in most cases that eventually die,” Dr Mbabazi says.
Handshakes have also been said to be a fertile ground for the spread of Ebola. Or aren’t they?Dr Mbabazi agrees because hands easily get contaminated when they get in contact with infected material like sweat, vomit, stool, urine, blood, or any other body fluid. Such materials can be picked by the hand in a hand shake directly or inadvertently from door handles, tables, and chairs.”
On whether victims wear zombie-like faces, infectious disease expert Dr Philippe Calain says: “At the end of the disease the patient does not look, from the outside, as horrible as you can read in some books. They are not melting. They are not full of blood. They’re in shock, muscular shock. They are not unconscious, but you would say ‘obtunded’, dull, quiet, very tired.”...
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1996-05/833458824.Vi.r.html
Posted by Tom Wilson Grade level: M.D./PhD, Pathology, Div. of Molecular Oncology, Washington University Medical School
where this description of the disease comes from. Ebola does cause a
large degree of tissue destruction in many parts of the body. We call
this tissue destruction "inflammation". But it is fundamentally no
different than the kind of destruction that occurs in, say, the common
cold. This is exactly how your body fights the infection. Unfortunately,
the inflammation can sometimes hurt you as much as it helps fight the
infection. Part of inflammation is that tissues become leaky to fluid
(why your nose runs), and this is compounded in Ebola infection since the
virus is infecting (and killing) the cells of the blood vessels (see below),
and so there is an even greater leakiness that results in frank bleeding.
This results in the very powerful image of an infected person, since they
have a bloody drainage at the eyes, nose, mouth, etc., and leads to the name
for this disease, which is "hemorrhagic (i.e. bleeding) fever". But this
idea that the internal organs turn to liquid is absurd. They are merely
having the same kind of inflammation occurring, which does cause fluid
accumulation and severe tissue destruction, but again, it is nothing as
fanciful what you have been led to believe.
As for the clotting, part of the bodies normal response to a damaged
blood vessel is to form a clot there, to stop the bleeding. A clot is a
solidification of the the liquid components of blood, and is thus a
fundamentally different process from the inflammation that is causing the
fluid leakiness.
Question 2: Ebola virus does NOT infect every cell in the body! Again,
I wish I knew where this idea came from. Ebola infects almost exclusively
the cells that line the insides of your blood vessels - we call them
"endothelial cells". Since all parts of your body have blood vessels,
of course, all *parts* of the body (skin, organs, brain, etc.) can get
infected. This is certainly part of why Ebola infection is so severe -
by infecting only one cell type, the whole body can be damaged. It is
also part of why Ebola can spread about the body so quickly - as soon
as virus gets released from a dying cell, it finds itself in the bloodstream
where it can now be pumped all over the body very fast.
As far as Ebola being a filovirus - it is called this simply because
it shares certain features with some related viruses - the details are
not important. But like all viruses, what Ebola has to do is to get
into the body, bind to the surface of the cell it infects, get into the
cell, make more of the virus, and then get back out of the cell to start
the cycle over again (which for most viruses kills the cell). This
process is certainly fascinating, but Ebola is not doing anything
fundamentally different than any other virus.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)exposed during that flight? Are you saying quarantine everyone in the airport they changed planes in and everyone in any plane they rode in? And by the way, it is West Africa, not East.
redruddyred
(1,615 posts)still, for fucks sake american government, I know you tea party assholes are busy being obstructive, but this would have been a good time to actuallly do something for once.
Shivering Jemmy
(900 posts)Zmap and the African anti AIDS drug approach appear promising.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)21 days is believed to be the incubation period. The quarantine should be longer than that.
I was placed under quarantine when I was very, very young because I had scarlet fever.
My husband was not allowed to immigrate the the US until he showed no more active tuberculosis.
We used to require people to isolate themselves, their children and their loved ones to avoid epidemics.
And by the way, plagues and serious spread of illness follows trade expansion, wars and the discovery of new continents.
Google it.
Europeans spread small pox to the Native Americans.
And just where did syphilis come from?
The history of syphilis has been well studied, but the exact origin of syphilis is unknown.[2] There are two primary hypotheses: one proposes that syphilis was carried to Europe from the Americas by the crew of Christopher Columbus, the other proposes that syphilis previously existed in Europe but went unrecognized.[3] These are referred to as the "Columbian" and "pre-Columbian" hypotheses respectively.[3]
In late 2011 newly published evidence suggested that the Columbian hypothesis is the valid one.[4]
"Skeletal evidence that reputedly showed signs of syphilis in Europe and other parts of the Old World before Christopher Columbus made his voyage in 1492 does not hold up when subjected to standardized analyses for diagnosis and dating, according to an appraisal in the current Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. This is the first time that all 54 previously published cases have been evaluated systematically, and bolsters the case that syphilis came from the New World."
The first written records of an outbreak of syphilis in Europe occurred in 1494/1495 in Naples, Italy, during a French invasion.[3][5] Because it was spread by returning French troops, the disease was known as "French disease", and it was not until 1530 that the term "syphilis" was first applied by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro.[5] The causative organism, Treponema pallidum, was first identified by Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffmann in 1905.[5] The first effective treatment (Salvarsan) was developed in 1910by Sahachirō Hata in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich which was followed by the introduction of penicillin in 1943.[5] Many famous historical figures including Franz Schubert, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Édouard Manet are believed to have had the disease.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_syphilis
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Are you saying you know better than the world's best epidemiologists?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)redruddyred
(1,615 posts)although the descriptor "best" ought be called into question what with their recent judgments on chronic lyme, M.E.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)and I'm with you. Contagious disease is not a great respecter of political correctness...
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)LESS THAN 21 DAYS will do the job. 2 weeks is pointless when the incubation period can go up to 3 weeks.
(facepalm)
Yer such a genius. Where did you study epidemiology?
jonjensen
(168 posts)The reason hospital turned out ebola patient was to save money as they are going bankrupt from gov. perry turning down enhanced medicare money. Anybody know if ebola victim is getting the medicine that saved the tree WHITE ebola patients or does it only go to white people with insurance?
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)We have about 16? more days before the 'all clear' on the exposed persons. I'll be surprised if all those people who had 'close contact' don't become sick.
madville
(7,404 posts)He has prison in Liberia to look forward to, not sure which outcome would be worse.
