Sunday, January 04, 2015

You would think we're under biological attack

via NBC News.
An American health worker who experienced a high-risk exposure to the Ebola virus while in Sierra Leone is being sent to a Nebraska hospital for observation and possible treatment, hospital officials announced Saturday.
"This patient has been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious," said Phil Smith, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medicine in Omaha. "However, we will be taking all appropriate precautions. This patient will be under observation in the same room used for treatment of the first three patients and will be carefully monitored to see if Ebola disease develops."
I had a sudden epiphany.

Most of the United States is suffering an "influenza epidemic".  How would you tell the difference between someone in the early stages of Ebola and some poor soul that has the flu?

Also remember that 1200 people were being monitored for Ebola within our borders just a couple of weeks ago.

If I didn't know better I would think we're under biological attack.  Ebola, Enterovirus D68 and now a flu so severe that its killed a healthy, active 3 year old girl. 

To answer your question, no, I don't think this is an attack.

I do think it points out how frail modern medicine actually is.  We might be better at healing broken bones and dealing with illness in normally healthy people, but when nature throws a wrinkle into our plans (like when they guess wrong on the flu virus that will hit) we're helpless.