This Week in Virology

 

I'm not a virologist, but I do play one on TV - yes, I really do - and this has been a really exciting week.  Just this morning the news broke of a Marburg outbreak in Uganda, just ...awesome.  There is a lot of information, and misinformation, out there right now.  Don't panic.  But do keep in mind #21Days - that's how long you may find yourself locked into yer house.

In short, there are a handful of emerging threats making news.  In order of importance to you:

1). Electronic medical records, in our fragmented, overworked, under-staffed medical system;

2).  EVd-68;

3).  Chikingunya

4)  Ebolavirus

We'll jump to the last one since it's of course making all the headlines.  We all read The Hot Zone back in the '90's; what's not to love about liquified internal organs, bleeding orifices, unclear modes of transmission and 90% mortality rates?  Bottom line here is, it's in Africa, and will pretty much stay there for the foreseeable.  Over there, yer witch doctor granny can't cure Ebola or AIDS, no matter what sort of smoke she blows up yer arse, and she is pretty much state of the art.  You'd likely have a better outcome here, at least we had running water and lanterns:

This brings us to  #1.  The reason you'd do better here, beyond hygiene and some clean water?  No electronic records.  The providers at our vacation MASH unit were able to communicate. EMRs are ridiculously difficult to work with and we'll leave it at that for now.  You'd get really scared if too much information were divulged, but it probably represents one of the biggest threats to your health today.

EVD 68 has been around a few years now, just not really making the news until recently.  It was first linked to paralysis in some kids in California, at least a year ago, actually I'm pretty sure it was two years ago..  It was linked to the deaths of one child and four adults this week.  The scary part? Its related to polio virus, just like in the iron lung days; we don't have a vaccine in development.  

Chikingunyan might be sort of fun.   Nobody has died, but you'll get lots of time off work.  The scary part?  It's vector - mosquitoes.  There isn't enough DEET in the world.  

Not going Alex Jones here, but the USG is actually responsible for this interesting week we find ourselves in. Not in a secret bioweapon sort of way though, awesome as that would be.  These viruses weren't cooked up in a plot to depopulate the planet, but they are now here in the US, to stay, due to poorly formulated policies mostly related to immigration.