RAF to Import Ebola
 

Ebola outbreak: Royal Air Force 'on standby' to bring back infected Brits - Telegraph

I should add that this isn't actually happening now, but is a contingency.

As an Island nation, arguably the best placed of all island nations, we stand a fair chance of coming through a Pandemic relatively unscathed, if we act swiftly and firmly. Now, I'm not particularly panicky about this, or any other recent epidemic but I am well aware that with any virus there is no real problem, until there is a big f******* problem, There isn't really any intermediary stage.

So why would we import something described by Cameron as a 'serious threat', when these walking (shambling, lolloping, dissolving...) dead only have a few days left to live anyway?

If you work in Africa for, no doubt, big bucks you need to accept the risk that that money is paid for. Health workers are the same; you know the risks, and as noble as your cause might be, you are playing with fire in those parts.

With these spineless politicians in charge, no doubt some of you WILL be given the happy task of bringing these mushies back home. I wonder how you chaps feel about the prospect?

I hope this doesn't qualify as a rant.

That 'built for purpose' Gulfstream the Yanks have is great but what have we got?

C17? ?

BBC News - Growing concerns over 'in the air' transmission of Ebola

Latest indication is that Ebola may be capable of short-range airborne transmission.

I'm with the OP - imported known infected patients is bonkers.

Isn't this is one of TMW's core roles?

Ebola has a 50-90% mortality, this outbreak is currently looking to be around 60%. Nobody's really sure whether that will change with proper
Level 3 care, but I understand there are two pilot projects underway in Atlanta.

So, err, the mushies aren't actually as dead as you think and the people who'll be repatriating them, already know who they are.

There's a solid plan to contain small to medium sized outbreak within the UK, involving the ambulance service HART teams & the Royal Free and Royal Victoria Infirmary. The real threat to the UKs health service will be panic stirred up by dribbling mouth breathers who don't understand what they're worried about.

So what is needed is an air-transportable Level 3 care unit, not bringing the infected into densely populated industrialised societies.

Time for you guys in the UK to pull up the drawbridge.

how pathetic you all are.. if it was your wife,brother,sister,husband..etc you would be screaming bloody murder if the government refused them the best help possible. that happens to be here. current outbreak mortality is running around 60% in a sh@t hole with appalling health care. give proper care and here in the UK and you would list likely be looking at 40-50%. so more likely than not your loved one would survive.

it's think of how many cases are reported in some of the most densely populated cities on Africa with absolutely no sanitation or hygiene, and yet there are still so few cases, this is a very hard bug to transmit, and very easy to contain in an advanced western society.

Pathetic? What about the risk to everyone else's wife/brother/sister/husband? Save one and risk infecting how many more? The other point is that no one knows how many cases there are - some out of reach of healthcare, some incubating for 3 weeks.

But it's OK. It will find its own way there through normal air travel. Perhaps it has already and you just don't know it yet.

There was nothing unusual-looking about the passenger arriving at Heathrow from Lagos.

He was carrying one of the most deadly diseases known to mankind, but it wasn’t noticed by overstretched Nigerian airport officials before departure, nor by attendants on the flight, despite their special training to watch out for feverish passengers.

Because Ebola is a disease that has an incubation period of between two and 21 days, it’s more than likely that the final line of defence — immigration staff at Heathrow — failed to notice anything untoward about him either.

It wasn’t as if he was so unsteady or unwell that he couldn’t answer basic questions.
And so he was waved through.

Little did anyone realise that his initial flu-like symptoms — fever, headache, achy limbs, sore throat — would soon become something much, much worse.

Ebola, a disease which is fatal in 90 per cent of cases and for which there is no vaccine and no known cure, was now in Britain for the first time.

It would soon be spreading across the country, killing almost everyone it touched.

Fortunately this is an imaginary situation, but an Ebola epidemic is the nightmare scenario which inspires Hollywood disaster movie writers and keeps public health officials awake at night.

From the Daily Mail.

Yes, highflyer, I would be screaming bloody murder if it was myself, or my family members in that situation. And I would hope the general consensus of the rest of the population would be enough to keep the government from pulling something so stupid. The emotional side of people will look for the humanity in these things, but the rational side of things needs to triumph. Why endanger 70 odd million lives, just to save 20 or so semi-deadites that wanted to work in THAT part of the world.

Tropical disease isn't something new, people know about them, if they don't then they shouldn't be going away to anywhere more exotic than Bradford. Going away to these places has its risks. People need to stand by that.

When was the last time you had the misfortune to visit London?

I should add that, this thing can take up to 21 days to fully manifest itself with visible symptoms. That means there is massive potential to be infected without anyone noticing, whilst still spreading it. Just because it can only 'officially' be transmitted by bodily fluids does not mean you need to stick your tongue down their throat to contract it. The correct procedure to nip this in the bud early would be to test everyone entering the country from anywhere. Of course that is impractical, and that is the reason that one day we will be caught with our trousers down.

I disagree with high flyer.

Yes, my parents / brother might want the best possible care but I would
hope that I wouldn't put at risk a whole heap of others to do it.

I will admit that my parents know I do dangerous things and might
well get ill, whacked, killed doing them since I told them so.

But bring something like Ebola into the UK on the off chance of saving
myself considering I put myself in a position to get it in the first place ?

No thanks.


Air to air infection. I think it's a fair distance that droplets of spit go when
you open your mouth and talk. Why risk it ?

Makes a change from herpies, knob rot and of course crabs.

you people really need to examine the facts. this current outbreak has being running since FEBUARY, in cities with millions of people who live in squalid conditions with basic hygiene and sanitation facilities an still there has only been around 1400 reported cases with around 700 deaths. your right it has a mortality rate of 90% (but that is if just left to your own devices) there is no cure but with proper care and treatment chances of survival are higher. with the basic healthcare over there they have managed to reduce this mortality to 60% and with proper western medicines and treatment this could most likely be reduced to 40-50%. in the early infectious stage your chances of catching this are equivelent to catching HIV, obviously once hemorrhagic bleeding sets in this would increase, but in the west by then you would be in proper quarantine.

I refer you back to my post #10. We don't know how many actual cases there are.

just think about it for a second. 1400 cases in 6 months. those people during that 21 days would have been walking past, dining with, sharing transport, working with..,etc literally thousands of people per day. think logically it is not very easily transmitted. the majority of those infected would have got it during the late and final stages when it was very apparent ( bleeding from every oriface ).

Courtney-

if this epidemic had started 3 weeks ago I would agree with you. it didn't it started 6 months ago, making the 21 day incubation period irrelevant.

Sure the actual cases probably aren't pinpoint accurate but they will be within 10% or so. there will be some out in the country that went unreported, but in the last few months there hasn't really been any more reported cases in the remote areas, it is more in the urban areas now. no hiding a dissolving body

Ignorance & fear,a dangerous mix.

We've brought people home who are terribly ill.I remember at least one British medic, infected with Marburg, being brought home by Hercules to Lyneham & I'm sure there were others.