Ebola. Folks. You are safe. Wednesday night I had the pleasure to listen to Dr. Art Caplan as he addressed the firm and our investors during a dinner in NYC. Only hours earlier Dr. Caplan had arrived from Geneva where he participated,as the United States representative, in the World Health Organizations Ebola Committee. I believe that he qualifies as an expert in this field. Heres a synopsis of what he said. The virus is a very complicated one. Similar to HIV in many respects. Drug therapies are under development but it is very difficult to nearly impossible to utilize standard clinical drug approval protocols. The infected West Africans will not participate in placebo trials. Alternative methods are being tried and we should be able to soon develop an effective drug to stop the virus in its tracks. This was welcomed news however it doesnt deal with the prevention of getting the virus and how to treat someone with full blown Ebola whom will probably not be able to be treated as their bodily excretions will make it very difficult for the drug to be maintained in the body. So how do you get it and why has it spread so rapidly in West Africa? The virus has a 10 hour life cycle. It lives in a wet host. It is not airborne. It is transmitted from mucus, saliva and bodily excretions such as diarrhea and vomit. An infected person must be handled in isolation and with spacesuits. In West Africa there are no isolation buildings and the infected stay at home for care where they infect others. When an infected person dies, friends and family hold and weep over the corpse. Ebola is alive and at its height of power. The virus spreads to many. Whom are getting infected in the US? Health care workers. Why, either improper isolation protocols such as removing the spacesuit or being in contact with a living virus before protecting themselves. So how will we stop this virus? First infected villages need isolation buildings and lots of them. Proper care protocols must be followed. The infected need to leave their homes. The living must stop touching the dead. Advanced stage patients should not have extraordinary resuscitation procedures applied. Hand washing is paramount to keeping the virus from spreading as the hands are the most effective virus spreading vehicle. As my colleagues and I are always flying we were very concerned with the possibility of being infected on a flight. His response was that you simply wouldnt be able to catch it unless an open part of your body, for example a finger cut, came in direct contact with a bodily excretion from an infected person. You can not catch it simply by being in a plane with an infected person. There is so much misinformation and fear being spread that I felt it necessary to discuss something work related. Something I never do on FB. This is simply my recanting of a presentation from an expert in this matter that I heard with my own ears. You can agree or disagree but I hope this set some of you at ease. Happy Friday.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:14:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015