Big news on the Ebola vaccine from Congo: "the evidence the WHO has been gathering in North Kivu — where nearly 64,000 doses have been administered — point to the vaccine being 'highly, highly efficacious.'" @statnews https://t.co/qdxtPnTFmO
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) January 22, 2019
In 2014, the last few weeks of the election season were dominated by headlines about the Ebola menace. It was used to whip up fear, xenophobia and otherness. That stopped about thirty eight seconds after the last ballot was accepted in Alaska.
And now practical and effective vaccines are now available that can be used to quickly isolate outbreaks.
Time to celebrate a bit of good news.
Elizabelle
How often can you see that headline?
Delighted to see it. Go, Science!
OzarkHillbilly
Andrew Wakefield has already booked a flight so he can help in the newest battle against this scourge on mankind.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
oldster
“…headlines about the Ebola menace… used to whip up fear, xenophobia and otherness.”
“… practical and effective vaccines…that can be used to quickly isolate outbreaks”
That’s about as good a summation of “their team” versus “our team” as you could get.
Msb
Wonderful news! Yay, WHO!
OzarkHillbilly
OT but news about American healthcare delivery:
On the other hand:
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s not accurate on multiple levels.
MattF
Yeah. I recall a RWNJ at work who was all worked up over Ebola, and Fox ‘news’ was devoting a large percentage of their reporting to the supposed threat. All bullshit. Epidemiologists will remind anyone who is willing to listen that you have to catch a disease from someone.
SRW1
Sort of a head scratcher. Almost as if international organizations are not completely useless.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’m just passing on Kaiser’s polling.
DavidC
But
Merck: Big Pharma!
WHO: UN!
Vaccines: Autism!
/sarc
Barbara
I know that this will help everyone, but the availability of a vaccine also means that it could become much less onerous to help victims of Ebola — I know that they are still in the early stages and are unlikely to relax protections, but perhaps not having to don the equivalent of huge astronaut suits and limit patient contact to an hour at a time (because the suits are so uncomfortable). And of course, many of the most affected countries have a lot of needs and relatively few medical personnel. Losing a doctor or nurse to Ebola has a wide impact on many people, not just Ebola victims. So this is just incredibly good news.
prufrock
@Baud: Yeah, the VA system is much more analogous.
rikyrah
Glad to hear something positive
Cermet
While glad this terrible illness can be controlled, what about the various wars in the Congo – over its mineral wealth that is used to fuel our needs? A low level war that has killed well over ten million people that dwarfs the deaths by Ebola and yet, isn’t addressed? If that many people were killed and still being killed anywhere else in the world, you’d hear endlessly about it. Yet, we hear of Ebola killing people but not the still running conflicts in that region that is still killing so many Congolese.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Read that too…so much winning..
Have we MAGA ?
randy khan
This is incredibly good news and, as Barbara mentioned, particularly good news for health care personnel in areas where Ebola might strike.
Luciamia
Wow, that’s amazing! But sure there are still Repubs out there saying Pfft, Eggheads, what do they know?
Waynski
Won’t get fooled again, EBOLA. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
pcpablo
Offer anti-vaxers a free trip to Africa, then ask them if they want an EBOLA vaccine. Line forms to the left!
Hawes
Yes, yes…that’s all well and good. But what does Jenny McCarthy say?
Felanius Kootea
This is wonderful news!
@pcpablo:
You’d get quite a few takers: from my rough estimates, only 6 of the 54 countries in Africa have experienced an Ebola outbreak. I’d pretend to be an anti-vaxxer for a free trip to Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Senegal, Botswana, Tanazania (hike up Kilimanjaro!) or Kenya. I’m from Nigeria
though ;-).
The Midnight Lurker
Some years ago… I think it was during the Bird Flu scare. There was a press briefing with the CDC. The alarmist media were shouting the most insane questions. And this young scientist, clearly fed up with the panic, shouted:
“Will you people please calm down?! Influenza killed fifteen thousand people last year!”
When he put it in context, the press people STFU.
Don’t quote me verbatim on the above, it’s from my flagging memory. But I bet one of you clever computer Juicers could find it in the ‘tubes’.
Doug R
How the new Ebola vaccine was made in Canada
You’re welcome, eh.
DaveInOz
But what if it causes autism?
Hob
@OzarkHillbilly: The error is in the Guardian article, which very wrongly says that single-payer coverage is “akin to the NHS”; Kaiser didn’t say that. Also, Kaiser referred to “a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan,” which the Guardian changed to say that “Medicare for all” is the exact same thing as single-payer.
The Guardian’s coverage of US politics is pretty odd at times, in ways that suggest maybe they’re getting all their information from a single US resident who isn’t terribly well informed and is also a hardcore Bernie-or-buster.