# 'Over 250 Mutations' of Ebola Spreading Across West Africa



## AquaHull (Jun 10, 2012)

'Over 250 Mutations' of Ebola Spreading Across West Africa

It was already the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Now it?s moving into Africa?s cities. - The Washington Post

Ebola Spreading 'Exponentially' as Patients Seek Beds in Liberia - NBC News

Any Medical Folks care to comment since this is way above my pay grade.


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## PrepperLite (May 8, 2013)

I really hope this doesn't go into Walking Dead mode while i'm gone... I randomly go on 1-3 month deployments with only a few days/weeks notice..... it is always my worst fear that i will be deployed when SHTF....


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Generally, a virus mutates into a less virulent one so that it doesn't kill its host. Dead hosts aren't very good at spreading it. Is that what is happening? We don't know from the articles. According to one, the "disease" kills half of those who are infected, but we don't know what strain they are using for the stat, don't know if it is an average, etc.

That's the aggravating thing about such articles.


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## oddapple (Dec 9, 2013)

I will go do some looking, but I log in as EID (emerging infectious diseases?) and the WHO as well as the CDC have both pretty much gone utter rogue and about as credible as msm, it's just our version.
Seems to me that anyone can arrive at the conclusion that it's harder for this to be natural than "helped along" so to speak, control ridiculous, containment an insult and strains/spread wilder as we go. It is an attack. I have been torn between test or attack for awhile, but it seems clear "it's on!" - do well








"Eeeee-bo-laaaaa! We did not do this ****** people!"

That's exactly what I think besides that you and most people you know have had at least a century of health and better breeding under your belt, which is a LOT, as well as sense enough to avoid, wash and make vitamin c and silver - whatever - shelf staples and start eating and living like you are under bio attack because you are. Little matters who - heh, seriously, no pun intended


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## Notsoyoung (Dec 2, 2013)

Denton said:


> Generally, a virus mutates into a less virulent one so that it doesn't kill its host. Dead hosts aren't very good at spreading it. Is that what is happening? We don't know from the articles. According to one, the "disease" kills half of those who are infected, but we don't know what strain they are using for the stat, don't know if it is an average, etc.
> 
> That's the aggravating thing about such articles.


I believe that originally the fatality rate for those infected was 90%, but now with the mutations it's only something like 50%. ONLY 50%.


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## mwatter111611 (Aug 21, 2014)

A virus always wants the easiest way into a host in order to mutate it has to give up something. I personally believe this virus is airborne or damn close to it which would explain the drop in death rate. 

Sorry if this posted twice phone is acting up


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## oddapple (Dec 9, 2013)

mwatter111611 said:


> A virus always wants the easiest way into a host in order to mutate it has to give up something. I personally believe this virus is airborne or damn close to it which would explain the drop in death rate.
> 
> Sorry if this posted twice phone is acting up


"the cadet's logic is sound" 50% mortality with virulent air spread and your name moves up to the "top ten" bio weapon list. If such folk weren't involved before, you can be sure they are now....


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Denton said:


> Generally, a virus mutates into a less virulent one so that it doesn't kill its host.


Actually it can go either way. The H1N1 started in Mexico City as a very lethal virus and mutated into one less lethal, but still very contagious. The H1N1 of 1917-18 did the opposite. Started as a fairly benign virus and then mutated into the very deadly strain that killed more people than WWI.

The thing about these viruses is that they can combine genetic material with other viral strains and change very quickly. This is how an influenza strain that starts in pigs or chickens can turn into a human strain. Basically, if a human host is already incubating a human strain of influenza and then contracts an animal strain, the two strains have a dna exchange party inside the host. Voila! Now we have a swine strain that can pass from human to human directly. This is what everyone is worried about with the avian flu. It is highly lethal (50%), but at this time, humans can only get it from direct contact with infected birds. (There are a few documented cases of human to human transmission among close family members.) If and when the virus combines with a human strain it will "go viral" with direct human to human transmission via airborne droplet, and it will then be one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known. With modern transportation, it will be around the world in 48 hours, killing 50% of the population.

The reason why most of our influenza strains start in Asia is because of the farming practices that allow pigs, chickens, and humans to all live in very close proximity. These viruses have infinite number of hosts of all three species in which to exchange dna. The CDC tracks the viruses as they play around in Asia first, and then tries to make the best prediction of which three strains will be the most problematic for any given year. These top three are the ones in each year's flu shots. Sometimes the predictions are spot-on, sometimes not. Sometimes the the viruses mutate further after the flu shots are already out, so it is an educated crap shoot every year.

There are many, many different families of viruses causing diseases like from colds, hepatitis, smallpox, MERS, SAR. influenza, measles, and genital warts. It is not the typical pattern for viruses of different families or genus groups to recombine and form entirely new bugs. It has supposedly been done in labs with the intent of creating WMD (such as combining small pox with ebola = ebolapox). I am probably going out on a limb, as I am not a virologist, but I don't believe Ebola will become transmissible by airborne route by exchanging dna with an airborne virus such as influenza, measles, or chicken pox, as they are from different viral genuses.

That is not to say that Ebola couldn't do its own quirky mutation and become airborne, but that would kind of be like the hepatitis B virus mutating into an airborne form all on its own. I may be wrong, but I don't think it is highly probable. Just my thoughts.

Please do not flame me for this post. I am offering my opinion. I am not discounting the serious nature of Ebola or saying that it is not going to show up in America. I am just saying that from my limited understanding of how viruses behave, I don't think it is time to panic over something (airborne Ebola) that has not yet happened and may never happen.

Worse case scenario: Ebola goes airborne. What do you do? You take the same precautions that you would if the Avian flu becomes transmissible human to human. You practice impeccable hand hygiene and social isolation. Self quarantine was the only way towns were able to protect themselves from the 1918 pandemic, and that is what will protect you if it happens again. You have to be prepared for months of self imposed quarantine.


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## pheniox17 (Dec 12, 2013)

oddapple said:


> That's exactly what I think besides that you and most people you know have had at least a century of health and better breeding under your belt, which is a LOT, as well as sense enough to avoid, wash and make vitamin c and silver - whatever - shelf staples and start eating and living like you are under bio attack because you are. Little matters who - heh, seriously, no pun intended


Have a real think about this, yes health and diet are on our sides, or is it?? We have people that are overwaight, we have people with asthma, we have a drug dependent culture... Including antibiotic dependent... To fix it... They build more medical centres and pump you with more drugs...

So a major bug like ebola hits the west, ends up in our medical facilities, and by chance gets giggy with the strep bug or worse... Thats a even worse outlook than the 50% death rate (i dont know how bugs murge or what they can mutate with, just painting a worse case mutation picture where the worse mutations will be here)


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Actually, Oddapple, "better breeding" is exactly what we _don't_ have. We have medical interventions for every condition under the sun. Thank goodness, or a lot of us wouldn't be here. But that is my point. The flip side to medical intervention and our clean living conditions is that everyone survives. There is no "survival of the fittest" like there is in developing countries. If we were exposed to even a fraction of the bacteria and parasites that the rest of the world lives with on a daily basis, we would die. They have developed immunity (or at least the survivors have a degree of immunity) where as we have not.

I believe that in certain scenarios, (power grid goes down, nuclear war, economic collapse) the best survivors will be those little communities tucked away in parts of the globe that no one cares about. They have been living in survival mode for many generations and will continue to do so. However, isolated populations are also extremely vulnerable to diseases for which they have had no exposure and therefore absolutely no immunity whatsoever. The flu of 1918 virtually wiped out the Inuit people, and many African populations were completed annihilated.


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## Camel923 (Aug 13, 2014)

Too bad there isn't a simple test to determine infection prior to the symptoms manifesting themselves. It would be helpful in removing the worry of a pandemic, considering world travel.


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