Ebola..update.

The WHO and others missed the obvious. This bit from the article is just weird: "...Even as the bodies piled up, health officials were unable to identify the killer as Ebola, a virus never before seen in west Africa."

Health officials did not get tainted blood and/or organs tested is more accurate. Futhermore, in The Ivory Coast in 1994 a new strain of ebola(Tai Forest) infected one, was isolated, and the victim survived. This lack of geographical distribution excuse simply does not hold water.

Why did so many die before ebolavirus was isolated as the causative agent? All of the symptoms were there starting with patient zero. This is huge smokescreen..or CYA to some.

I should state presumably patient zero, as USAMRIID notes the following:

According to the publication’s authors, between 500 and 700 samples are submitted each year to the KGH Lassa Diagnostic Laboratory in Sierra Leone. Generally, only 30 to 40 percent of the samples test positive for Lassa fever, so the aim of this study was to determine which other viruses had been causing serious illnesses in the region.

Using assays developed at USAMRIID that detect the presence of IgM, an early protein produced by the body to ward off infection, the research team found evidence of dengue fever, West Nile, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, chikungunya, Ebola, and Marburg viruses in the samples collected between 2006 and 2008.

There is an elephant in this room. Here is more detail. Sorry, but I have never bought the story of "no one could have known." USAMRIID knew, and even mentions the Tai Forest case in the liked to piece. When will people stop making the same mistakes regarding infectious diseases with animal vectors? From ticks to fruit bats, critters simply do not respect national boundaries. While I am on a pseudo-rant, ticks are not necessarily as slow moving as their own powers of ambulation permit. Ticks are after a blood meal. Many species will gladly take a meal from a migratory bird potentially spreading pathogens far outside of the disease's natural reservoir area. One need not even mention that bats are somewhat more mobile sans any hitchhiking than the evil tick.

I still do not understand today's GOP...fighting, fighting ebola....

GOP senator holding up Ebola money. Fucking James Inhofe..*sigh* This is good:

A top Senate Republican is holding up the White House's request for roughly $1 billion to fight Ebola in West Africa, according to a Wednesday report.

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member James Inhofe (Okla.) allegedly wants more detail from the administration on how the request would impact the defense budget.

The funds are set to be "reprogrammed" from an account that would have been spent on the war in Afghanistan, according to The Associated Press, which first reported the hold.

Inhofe asked the Obama administration for more detail on how it would protect military personnel who come in contact with Ebola as part of the response effort, the AP says.

If true, the hold throws a wrench in the White House's plan to dramatically ramp up the fight against Ebola. Officials have warned that, without immediate "speed and scale," any efforts to curb the disease's spread will be quickly overtaken.

Unless the AP has gotten EVERYTHING about this wrong, Inhofe is indeed blocking moving forward. The saddest thing is that Inhofe is worried about diverting a whole billion dollars from the five hundred twenty-seven billion pentagon budget for 2014. Ya knows Jimmy, I think we can afford to send 1/527th of the official DoD budget to do some good in the world without any posturing. Duh-fuh? I really do not understand what has passed for conservatism since the days of Nixon. Nixon was a fatally flawed human being, but I could follow most of what he did. Reagan scared the Hell out of sane people, and the recycled Reaganites since then have been just plain obtuse.

I need pizza or something.