Of Great Concern Part 2

Just 2 weeks ago I posted a piece titled Of Little Note But Great Concern     http://theeveningchronicle.blogspot.com/2014/07/of-little-note-but-great-concern.html that discussed the growing Ebola outbreak in West Africa.  Since then the situation has grow worse and far more perilous.  Yes there has been some coverage in the MSM but that has for the most part focused on the lead Doctor treating the patients having contracted the disease himself.  There was even one Reuters story mentioning that a man from Liberia had collapsed at the Lagos Nigeria International Airport and had subsequently been diagnosed with and died from Ebola.

Known and suspected areas
of outbreak in West Africa.

In the past the most horrific form of hemorrhagic fever has been largely confined to remote jungle villages and the outbreaks contained and died out by isolation procedures.  This time however that has apparently changed as the out break has claimed over 600 victims and spread from Guinea into Liberia, Sierra Leone and now apparently Nigeria.  That this latest victim arrived there by aircraft raises some very troubling questions.  This passenger zero boarded a flight in Monrovia Liberia.  The flight then stopped in Lome, Togo before proceeding on to Lagos Nigeria. 

• How many passengers boarded the flight in Monrovia?
• How many passengers got off in Lome, Togo? 
• Were did they go from there?
• Where did all the other passengers from the flight disperse to once it arrived in Lagos?

Given that this passenger zero died approximately 72 hours after his collapse at the airport it must be considered that he was infectious and contagious when he boarded the flight in Liberia.  Depending upon the particular strain of Ebola the incubation period is believed to be to vary from 2 days up to three weeks. 

The open questions that must be considered then are:

Ebola virus.

• At what point between exposure and the presentation of symptoms does the exposed individual become contagious?
• Where and how far have passenger zero's fellow passengers traveled in the interim and up to three weeks from there possible exposure? 

Lagos Nigeria is the largest city in Africa and the forth largest in the world.  Passengers fly out of its airport quite literally to every corner of the world.  This could quickly become not an African problem but a global one.  Adding to this danger has been an emerging story, also out of Liberia, that a confirmed patient there was kidnapped from the hospital where they were being held in isolation.  Allegedly this was done by family members but no one is absolutely sure.

• Who in there right mind would do such a thing knowing the consequences?
• Was it done deliberately in order to capture a live virus patient that could be used to further spread the disease? The very question I raised in my previous story.

I'm not foreseeing a scenario out of the movie World War Z or even the current TV show The Last Ship here but I do foresee the current administration forestalling public awareness until it is possibly to late.