Aviation and the Ebola epidemic in West-Africa

[Flanker2]

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, medical correspondent for CNN and neurosurgeon, has said that contaminated surfaces form a risk for hours, even days.

I will add you a potential risk area that dr. Piot and Lesoir can't think of for lack of technical knowledge: aircraft toilets.
Most people don't know this, but the chemical water that flushes the toilet is cycled around and around.
Yes, you are flushing the toilet with the previous passenger's filtered waste mixed with desinfecting chemicals.
The fact is, as the flight advances, flush after flush, the chemical fluid loses most of its effectiveness and you flush with progressively dirty water (flush water becomes brown).
If an Ebola carrier contaminated the flush water, the spats of fluid that bounce back as you sit down to do your business can contaminate you. It can also contaminate the ground worker who removes the waste once the aircraft lands, as some fluids can spat onto his clothes.

Also, the sweat or remains that an Ebola carrier can leave on the toilet seat and in the small sink that spats a lot of water, can infect the next person.

I wonder if Dr. Piot would be comfortable boarding a 9-hour flight full of Ebola patients without his hazmat suit, use the toilet, be passed his food tray over and make contact with the neighbo'rs eelbow.
And that's the question that you should ask yourself and stop thinking that it would never happen to you, which is unfortunately a too common attitude in Belgium.

And that's only part of the story... you don't need to be vomited on to get it.
When you sneeze into your hand or handkerchief, you deflect a lot of fluids sideways... (see mythbusters) and if people wearing Hazmat suits and taking precautions can get it as did the 2 American doctors, then for me it's definitely contagious enough that a guy sitting next to you in the London subway could give it to you by sneezing.

Also think about the people working in catering or horeca who wash the dirty eatware and inevitably come in contact with food remains, dirty paper towels, spats of water containing saliva, etc...

Ignorance is bliss.
As a doctor, Dr. Piot obviously never thinks that there are people who wash his dishes, clothes, cleans his car, his toilet, his hotel rooms, his house. All those people are at risk of being infected.
He is in turn at risk of being infected by the people who prepare his food, from the people at sandwich stores who touch money with the same hands they make the sandwiches, to the kitchen staff and chefs who don't wear hazmat suits or gloves when preparing your meals.

Think about it: if a cook contracts Ebola, how many people can he contaminate?
How many of them can you track down? All those who paid with a debit or credit card. What about those who paid cash?

What about hygiene in bars, where your beer glasses are washed in the same water as the other 50 other beer glasses and not always dried properly before being used to tap your beer?

[FlightMate]

Clearly an attempt they are making to de-dramatize the situation.
The day I see the good doctor sit without protection next to a contagious person will be the day I believe what he says.

As for the toilets, it depends on the type I guess. Most are the sucking-type, aren't they?

[sean1982]

Flanker,

Those toilets we're used in 1960 or so ... Todays toilets have a vacuum flush and are rinsed with fresh water from the water tank. Unless you're flying on a B737-200 or something similar.

[Flanker2]

Yes, I'm talking about the recirculating ones. The vacuum ones are a tad better on that front, but you can still contaminate the ground workers as the valves are not always closing properly.
Many RJ's (CRJ's, Avro RJ's), B737 Classics, DC9/MD80, B757/B767, Q400 still work on the recirculating principle and there's still plenty of them around.

[Flanker2]

And while Sean is here, a thought for the cabin crew who have to collect our dirty empty glasses, food trays and waste paper tissues, mostly without wearing any protection.

[sean1982]

as far as I know SN requires their crew to wear gloves while operating "ebola flights"

[Flanker2]

Well, I certainly hope so. But what about connecting flights?
And as the Ebola threat amplifies in the coming weeks/months and as long as free travel is allowed out of those countries, I shall hope that all CC's at any airline are allowed to wear gloves at all stages of flight, as they will be at the first row of the Ebola's spreading into other regions of the world.

[airazurxtror]

About that SN Customer :
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital issued a six-word statement about Thomas Duncan on Saturday, saying only that "Mr Duncan is in critical condition."
Earlier his condition had been described as serious but stable.

[sn26567]

About that SN Customer

Wasn't he a UA customer?

[sn26567]

CDC officials have removed two passengers from a plane that landed in Newark Saturday afternoon following a possible Ebola scare.

United flight 998 from Brussels landed at Newark Airport and was met by Centers for Disease Control officials based in Newark after a passenger on board, believed to be from Liberia, exhibited possible signs of Ebola.

An official who had been briefed on the situation said the passenger was "vomiting on the flight but did not display most of the other symptoms."

"He's now being treated with protocols as if he has it but no clear indication at this point that he does," the official said.

The flight landed around noon with 253 passengers and 14 crew members aboard.

More: http://7online.com/health/cdc-investiga ... t-/336774/

[sn26567]

CDC officials have removed two passengers from a plane that landed in Newark Saturday afternoon following a possible Ebola scare.

United Airlines Flight 998 from Brussels, Belgium, touched down at Newark Liberty International Airport at 12:15. CDC quarantine officers met the plane after one of the 255 passengers was vomiting on the flight.
The passengers were released at 13:50 and permitted to go through customs.

The sick passenger and his daughter were taken to a hospital for evaluation. "The symptoms of one individual were found to be consistent with another, minor treatable condition unrelated to Ebola," the health department said. "The second individual, who was traveling with the patient, was asymptomatic."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/04/us/ne ... passenger/

[airazurxtror]

Thanks heaven, gotten off scot-free this time !
Stay tuned for next episode.

[Passenger]

Thanks heaven, gotten off scot-free this time !
Stay tuned for next episode.

Seems you've missed it: the Netherlands had their 15th (fifteenth) suspected ebola case yesterday.

Just one of the 37.000 newsreports about this latest case (a male citizen from Sierra Leone):
http://www.nu.nl/algemeen/3895227/mogel ... erdam.html

The guy that collapsed in a hospital in Dordrecht (NL) yesterday didn't fly Brussels Airlines and he didn't land at Brussels Airport. Could that be the reason why the ebola watchers here didn't report it?

[sean1982]

where does it say he didnt fly SN?

[sn26567]

where does it say he didn't fly SN?

Where does it say he did? And even if he did, what is the problem? Nobody got Ebola flying SN, for as far as I know.

[RoMax]

Some are still trying to 'prove' that SN is the only one guilty of spreading Ebola to the world. Comments from specialists from all over the world saying that banning commercial flights will NOT prevent the spreading of Ebola infected people to other parts of the world are simply ignored. But what's even worse in my opinion, is that the credibility and expertise of these specialists are undermined by these people, only because that's a point of view which is not against SN and RAM.

[sean1982]

Haha, a bit like the "on site jobs" discussion .... "Some" only believe the experts they want to believe I suppose.

[sean1982]

where does it say he didn't fly SN?

Where does it say he did? And even if he did, what is the problem? Nobody got Ebola flying SN, for as far as I know.

I didnt say he did .... But passenger states he didnt .... What is the source of that info?

[RoMax]

Haha, a bit like the "on site jobs" discussion .... "Some" only believe the experts they want to believe I suppose.

Ok then, cite me an Ebola/epidemic/health worker expert that explicitly calls to stop commercial flights to/from these countries to prevent the spreading of the disease.

[airazurxtror]

Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient hospitalized in Dallas, is "fighting for his life," a top U.S. health official said on Sunday, a day after the man's condition worsened from serious to critical.
"The man in Dallas is the only patient to develop Ebola in the United States," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, told CNN's State of the Union.
Frieden said in the affected parts of West Africa, where Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people, the disease is spreading so rapidly it is difficult for health officials to keep up.