World Health Organization Urges Nuclear Strike On Ebola Outbreak in West Africa
The World Health Organization today announced a massi ve outbreak of mutated Ebola-related virus in the Republic of Guinea. According to radio reports from WHO workers last Friday, the outbreak in the town of Raatsaass (between the Konkoure River and the city of Fria) appears to be a previously unknown strain of the Filoviridae group, with an airborne contagion vectorand over 95 percent mortality rate.
World Health Organizations Africa Response Coordinator Odjeazhus Weurfuqdnaowe stated that the WHO First-Response team encountered villagers fleeing the area in panic, shouting of bodies lying everywhere. When they reached the outskirts of the town, medical staff radioed reports of overwhelming casualties, with people bleeding-out all around us. Weurfuqdnaowe related that medical personnel began to exhibit VHF (viral hemorrhagic fever) symptoms within a day after they arrived in the town; doctors and nurses themselves began dying within 24 hours after exposure, and standard containment and quarantine procedures were apparently completely ineffective against the new mutated Ebola strain.
The Coordinator further acknowledged that a final radio message from the First-Response group on Sunday stated We are all dying. The field hospital looks like a slaughterhouse, blood is everywhere. Doctors and nurses lay where they have fallenthe few of us left have not the strength to move them. Raatsaass is a plague town and we fear the epidemic is spreading. Some villagers reached the Konkoure River and could be in Labe or Fria soon; others went south and might be in Boffa or Conakry already. Do not send anyone else in after us, it is too late. Burn everything from the air.
There has been no communication or response from Raatsaass in the past 38 hours.
Multiple cases of hemorrhagic fever were identified in Boffa and the capital city of Conakry on Monday, and there are rumors that similar symptoms are being seen in Freetown (Sierra Leoene) and possibly Mali near the border of Gambia and Senegal. The Guinean Ministry of Transportation suspended air travel from Conakry and Kindia today, but officials admitted that several flights had departed from those cities over the weekend. The bordering nations of Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Cote dIvoire and Liberia have set up military checkpoints on roads leading out of Guinea, and there are unconfirmed reports that refugees attempting to leave Guinea have been fired upon.
Under the circumstances, we must assume the worst-case scenario, Weurfuqdnaowe concluded at the close of his press conference. The evidence we have indicates that this is a new and extremely contagious strain of filoviridae Ebola, posing a health threat worse than any previously-known epidemic. If the virus succeeds in migrating out of Guinea, it could very well sweep the planet more rapidly than any medical intervention would be possible.
We will monitor conditions in Guineas urban centers closely over the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. If the disease spreads as rapidly as we fear, it will be imperative that the outbreak be contained and exterminated at any cost. Regretfully, it is the recommendation of the World Health Organization that members of the United Nations must consider the use of a nuclear weapon, if necessary, in hopes of stopping the lethal virus before it spreads across the world.
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The really spooky part is-- I put this up early todayas a 4-1 fool article, then heard on NPR this afternoon that the Guinea Ebola outbreak has shown up in Sierra Leone, and adjoining countries have actually closed their borders to travelers from Guines...
Life imitating Art imitating life... weird.
Do you think that it can be transmitted via animals ?
From what I've read PC, apparently nobody knows exactly how the shit spreads, or where it goes when an outbreak 'burns out' and just disappears. You'd think it would have to have some mammal 'host' in nature, but apparently no one has figured out what. There is at least one simian virus that has very similar effects, so Ebola and related VHF's (Marburg, Rift Valley fever, etc) are probably another simian-crossover, like AIDS.
Another weirdie is that Ebola and most of the related viral hemorrhagics appear to be 'dies when it dries' type viruses, but also seem to 'break out' without reports of people being bitten by rats or fleas or whatever--- leading us to think that there may be some unknown 'hibernation state' like other sorts of virus are known to have.
If you haven't read it, check out Richard Preston's non-fiction novel "The Hot Zone", published back in 1994. It gives a really decent run-down on the initial appearances of Ebola and Marburg, with some speculations about the origins. The really chilling section deals with an outbreak of an Ebola-like virus among lab monkeys in Reston, Virginia (about 20 miles from Washington DC). The virus had a high fatality rate and was an airborne-transmission virus-- the good news is that the stuff didn't affect humans, but the CDC and the US Army Bio-specialists from Fort Detrich went in in Level 4 safety suits, ended up destroying every monkey in the warehouse, which was then sterilized, quarantined and torn down. That's how fucking scared they were that the 'Reston virus' (which apparently was a mutant cousin of Ebola) might mutate into an airborne-vector that would infect people. The book is totally spooky-- it reads like one of Robin Cook's novels, but the whole damn thing is true!!!!
Scary stuff . I'll def need to check out"The Hot Zone" ...
O-kay, Mike... btw: you can have my ticket on the Marrakesh Express-- seems a little too close to the danger zone to me...
