Ebola out break

[lew600fazer]

Up front this is nothing to do with race etc!
Just watching the news and seeing the supposed security measures and care being taken in the prevention of the spread of this horiffic plague.
We see the medical staff being sprayed with some kind of disinfectant, excellent. I am aware these are poor countries and have limited resources. Surely a garden type spray is not the most effective way of going about decontaminating. We have been having adverts day in day out about giving money to help aliviate the suffering, just wonder how many pence from each ££££ actually goes to the aid and how many pence goes to some head of a said charity? Oh and before my friend from up north gobs off, no I have not chipped in.

[Fazafou]

Surely a garden type spray is not the most effective way of going about decontaminating.

You'd be surprised. Ebola is a pretty vulnerable virus outside the body and basic sanitising chemicals are enough to inactivated it.

All charities will skim for 'admin' though, just depends on the %s.

[Simon.Pieman]

Surely a garden type spray is not the most effective way of going about decontaminating.

The worst thing would be over egging the pudding and buying expensive crap that doesn't actually do the job better. As Fazfou says the Ebola virus is a seven stone weakling once outside the body, it doesn't even live long enough in a sneeze to be a threat.
 Another good example of brilliant cheap prevention is deet, an inexpensive synthetic oil that can prevent you being infused with the biggest killer mankind has ever known -malaria. Some people still prefer to spend on useless electronic mossie repellent machines and the trendy but useless citronella.
Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it doesn't work

[lew600fazer]

Okay, the garden spray thing!! but in most local public swimming pools one is supposed to walk through a shower  room, why not out there. Also if we are supposed to have a handle on this outbreak why have we had a returning nurse in a critical condition in the London free Hospital , She had her temp taken 7 times ??? why is this standard?
Surely the lass must have had a hint she was felling unwell?? Did her professional training dip because she wanted to get home for Christmas. I trust she will make a full recovery, but how many others have been put at risk. I do not pretend to know anything about how this illness is spread. I do know this though having travelled a lot all over the world by air and sea, someone on a plane with 300 people onboard has a cold/flu sneezes an awful lot of folk will catch something or other while on the that flight.

As a seafarer used to doing long voyages as in times between ports we as a ships crew were always vunerable when we docked. Usually from either a new crew member joining the ship or from shore side staff attending the vessel, if they had a cold or flu and sneezed it as a rule would go through the ships company in short order. Reason was we normally lived in a virus free enviroment. When a vessel arrives in  port (oil/gas tankers) one of the first things that happens ids the Air Con is put on recirc. This is to protect the crew in case there is a gas leak / and or toxic type gasses from the cargo being loaded or discharged , but the fact it is on recirc also leads to the likely hood a virus if brought onboard will infect a few within the ships company who may not have a decent immune system, especially those who make have been on for months
.

[Aegis Bearing Mel]

The good thing, if such a phrase can be used in this case, is that Ebola is only transferred by bodily fluids, it's thankfully not airborne.
So really only blood, vom, keech, semen and the like in direct contact with you for you to catch it.

Hypochlorite solution is amazing it destroying genetic material, Ebola is a wee strand of RNA stuck in a protein shell, so the bleach solution kills it off nicely.
So for surface treatment of folks leaving an infected area the garden scoosher is ideal as it is a controlled delivery of a concentration of your choice.
Problem with a shower would be the massive volume of dilute viral suspension that you would then have to deal with.

It is an issue, but it pisses me off no end how much this has been made a huge thing by the media recently, same as Bird Flu and SARS.
The microbiologist in me shudders at the misinformation about it all...