Ebola

I think that the news media is doing the public more of a disservice than any good by sensationalizing the current Ebola outbreak.

While there is no known cure and the majority of those who contract the illness die, the number of cases is hardly what is considered an "epidemic" by any standards used by the World Health Organization. Yes there have been more cases this year than any of the previous years, but really now even if all of the 1048 reported cases were confined to one city it still couldn't be considered an "epidemic". Media sensationalism serves only to alarm the entire population of Africa (if not the whole world) unnecessarily and is likely to frighten people into not reporting symptoms.

Do you hear the WHO or CDC raving about Dengue? Not a chance and there are thousands of times more cases of Dengue worldwide than Ebola. Hell, here in Brazil we have a single city, Campinas with a population of 952,659, that has had over 17,000 cases of Dengue just this year. However that's only 1.78% of the total population. You don't see these organizations throwing out the word "epidemic" when talking about Dengue.

By definition you don't have an EPIDEMIC untll you have over 7.7% of a population infected. 1048 cases of Ebola, when you're considering the total population of 4 African countries, is like calling a cup of water a flood. Let's be real here!

However, such alarmist headlines should be great for boosting the revenues of charitable organizations; which is probably the whole idea of this media scare campaign in the first place.

Guinea - Population : 10 million / 427 cases /  Percentage:  0.0047%

Liberia -  Population 4.5 million / 391 cases /  Percentage:  0.0086%

Sierra Leone - Population  6.3 million /  574 cases /  Percentage:  0.0091%

Nigeria - Population 173.6 million / 3 cases /  Percentage:  0.0000017%


Does anybody really see an EPIDEMIC when you look at the true figures?????

While they won't kill you I'm sure that more people have the hiccups at any given moment in all of these nations. Would that be a hiccups epidemic?

wjwoodward wrote:

I think that the news media is doing the public more of a disservice than any good by sensationalizing the current Ebola outbreak.

That's what they do.  Remember when the world was going to end in 2012 and 2000?  How about bird flu, swine flu, ocelot flu and whatever else was going to kill us all.  Fear and panic sells.

Nice rant about the media James. Not sure what media you are reading. Did you read the article linked in my first post?

Regarding the topic of this thread, EBOLA:
At least two things are worse than previous outbreaks of this disease. First and most dangerous is that those infected with this strain survive longer. In the past the disease essentially isolated itself by killing patients so rapidly that they could NOT travel anywhere. Now, as we have seen, patients can fly around the world with the risk of spreading the disease internationally before they succumb to it.

I understand that very well El, but I was pointing out that calling it an EPIDEMIC is not only unnecessarily alarming, it is completely wrong to do so.

This is an OUTBREAK by any yardstick that the medical community wants to measure it by. In real terms and even by the World Health Organization's own standards 7.7% of the overall population and above makes an epidemic. This, however virulent the strain has become comes nowhere close to that.

Besides prompting the "worry warts" to cough up more money in donations for charities like the International Red Cross, Medics without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and all the rest, what does it serve? Most of the infected nations have already restricted air travel and surrounding nations are either not allowing entry of passengers coming from infected areas or are giving them extensive examinations before allowing entry.

This scare will probably backfire in terms of real health and trying to quell the outbreak itself, in that it will very likely scare people into not reporting symptoms or seeking out treatment; both of which will only prolong the spread of the Ebola virus.

This doesn't even take into consideration the potential adverse effects on the economies of the countries involved. The word EPIDEMIC is pretty damned scary and it's bound to cause loads of people who would otherwise travel to those countries in unaffected areas from doing so. Every dollar that they don't bring into these countries and spend there is just another dollar they don't have in the local economy. You can't treat the patient but kill the nation!

wjwoodward wrote:

I understand that very well El, but I was pointing out that calling it an EPIDEMIC is not only unnecessarily alarming, it is completely wrong to do so.

This is an OUTBREAK by any yardstick that the medical community wants to measure it by. In real terms and even by the World Health Organization's own standards 7.7% of the overall population and above makes an epidemic. This, however virulent the strain has become comes nowhere close to that.

Besides prompting the "worry warts" to cough up more money in donations for charities like the International Red Cross, Medics without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and all the rest, what does it serve? Most of the infected nations have already restricted air travel and surrounding nations are either not allowing entry of passengers coming from infected areas or are giving them extensive examinations before allowing entry.

This scare will probably backfire in terms of real health and trying to quell the outbreak itself, in that it will very likely scare people into not reporting symptoms or seeking out treatment; both of which will only prolong the spread of the Ebola virus.

This doesn't even take into consideration the potential adverse effects on the economies of the countries involved. The word EPIDEMIC is pretty damned scary and it's bound to cause loads of people who would otherwise travel to those countries in unaffected areas from doing so. Every dollar that they don't bring into these countries and spend there is just another dollar they don't have in the local economy. You can't treat the patient but kill the nation!

My point is James you are the one who brought up the term EPIDIMIC. Neither I not the report I quoted did so.
Personally, even without the word 'epidemic' I find this outbreak very scary.

Breaking news on CNN!

CNN reported that Ebola disease cure has been found in America. A ZMAPP serium was reported to be the remedy for Ebola disease. It was reported that it has been tested with monkey before. Dr Brandly being the first human being to be tested with the ZMAPP serium and he was responding to the treatment.

Regards,
Shakir

Hi again El,

Sorry, I should have made myself much clearer. When I complained about the use of the word EPIDEMIC I was not referring to the Reuters article you mentioned.... should have said that right up front. I don't know if you've seen and of the North American media reports or the stuff that is coming out here in Brazil, but they're all throwing the word epidemic around like it's the newest "buzzword" at the office.

They're blowing it all out of proportion and actually I think they're doing it on purpose for a number of different reasons. First to boost donations for charity as I mentioned and second to kind of distract people from some of the other more urgent problems in the world right now, the situation in Ucrania and with Israel in Gaza for example.

@W.J,
Thanks for the information, but why will the Americans be doing this at this critical time of history... If your reasons are geniue, then I think it is not out of proportion to think that some of these diseases are laboratory developed serpent and being used for their selfish propaganda on target locations...

Regards,
Shakir

Hi James,
No problem!
Funnily the same evening as I wrote my last comment the Swiss evening news SRF used the German term "Epidemie" twice in their short report about the ebola outbreak. 

Yeah, I think that the US government and their stauchest allies are exerting a lot of pressure on the media to play up anything that will take attention of their ongoing support for a certain Middle East country that shall go unnamed. The Ebola scare was tailor made for that.