Analyst's note: Learn the details as to why health workers, as well as our hospitals, and you are still being put at risk using the current protocol for Ebola. Facemasks are not enough. There is much more that needs to be considered. I'm am still not personally comfortable that political correctness is not driving some of our policies. Are you willing to trust this Obama government with your life? I didn't think so. For me it has to be, "In God we trust, all others we check." This warning could still prove true as ISIS Plans On Sending Muslims Infected With Ebola Into America To Infect And Kill Americans. Our Defense Dept. won't even define our military's Ebola mission in West Africa as our warfighters are currently engaged there in 'logistics, engineering' for health workers. Please read on.
We see that Texas Health Officials Have Yet to Clean Ebola Patient’s Home Despite Protocol, as well as the fact that a Shock Image Shows Unprotected Workers Cleaning up ‘Ebola Vomit’ in Dallas.
Yes, the family who housed the Ebola victim has been forcibly quarantined in their apartment, but no one is talking about their sewage if/when they breakout with the disease, nor that have they addressed that same issue with the active Ebola patient who stayed with them. From the article Ebola Patients Wastes Go Into Public Sewage :
.... It would appear several federal laws have been ignored such as 42 U.S. Code § 6903 in disposing of waste in sewers.
[(5) The term “hazardous waste” means a solid waste, or combination of solid wastes, which because of its quantity,
concentration, or physical, chemical, or infectious characteristics may—
(A) cause, or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible, or incapacitating
reversible, illness; or
(B) pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored,
transported, or disposed of, or otherwise managed.
If Filoviruses such as Ebola are In Sewage, it will survive in the Effluent == Reclaimed water and Sludge
products
The one smoking gun you hear little about is virus that infect bacteria and the treatment of sewage waste is
accomplished by bacteria. EPA's Mark Meckes documented in 1982 that more antibiotic resistant bacteria was released
from treatment plants than entered it. According to the latest EPA research, there is no way to actually measure the
pathogens in sewage waste which are removed as viable biofilms: "Kellogg J. Schwab Ph.D.,Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences" states:
- Biofilms are remarkably difficult to treat with antimicrobials.
- Antimicrobials may be readily inactivated or fail to penetrate into the biofilm
- bacteria within biofilmshave increased (up to 1000-fold higher) resistance to antimicrobial compounds
- even though these same bacteria are sensitive to these agents if grown under planktonic conditions
- Biofilms increase the opportunity for gene transfer between/among bacteria
- Certain species of bacteria communicate with each other within the biofilm.
-
As their density increases, the organisms secrete low molecular weight molecules that signal when the
population has reached a critical threshold. This process, called quorum sensing, is responsible for the
expression of virulence factors - Bacteria express new, and sometimes more virulent phenotypes when growing within a biofilm.
-
Bacteria embedded within biofilms are resistant to both immunological and non-specific defense mechanisms of
the body
More about viruses in sewage.
Even more about virus survival here.
Dr Schwab also shows in his EPA presentation that viruses are more hardy than we are led to believe.
•Transmitted via fecal-oral route –predominantly from human waste
•Viruses cannot replicate outside of specific hosts thus they can accumulate but not grow in a biofilm–
Protection from disinfectants –Aggregation of virus
•Enteric viruses are non-enveloped and thus resistant to environmental degradation and chemical inactivation
–Persist for weeks to months in cool aqueous environments
•The infectious dose for most human enteric viruses is very low (10-100 particles) and thus even very low levels
are of public health concern
•There is minimal to no correlation between bacterial indicators and viruses in potable water
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Image Credits: 121483302@N02, Flickr
Professors at the University of Illinois in Chicago assert that the Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via “infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients,” suggesting that the current understanding of Ebola only being communicable via direct contact is inaccurate.
In a piece published by CIDRAP, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, authors Dr Lisa Brosseau and Dr Rachael Jones highlight how Ebola currently has “unclear modes of transmission.”
“We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks,” states the article.
Making reference to “controversy about whether Ebola virus can be transmitted via aerosols,” the authors assert that the current understanding that Ebola can only be transmitted by by direct contact with virus-laden fluids is “incorrect and outmoded.”
The authors note that US health professionals currently tackling Ebola are being put at risk because of the failure to offer them proper “respiratory protection,” making reference to hundreds of fatalities of Ebola health workers in West Africa due to facemasks or surgical masks which offer “very minimal protection from infectious aerosol particles.”
“Being at first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, we are now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings,” states the article.
Earlier today, Anthony Banbury, the United Nations’ Ebola response chief warned of the “nightmare scenario” that Ebola could go airborne as a result of a mutation if it continues to infect new hosts.
“The longer it moves around in human hosts in the virulent melting pot that is West Africa, the more chances increase that it could mutate,” said Banbury, adding, “It is a nightmare scenario, and unlikely, but it can’t be ruled out.”
As we reported yesterday, the Public Health Agency of Canada deleted information from its official website which indicated that the “airborne spread” of Ebola was strongly suspected by health authorities.
Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, also acknowledged in a recent New York Times op-ed that virologists are “loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private” the possibility that Ebola has gone airborne.
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