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2014-09-14 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Black Market in Blood Serum Emerging Amid Ebola Outbreak

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Posted by trailing wife 2014-09-14 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 A black market for an Ebola treatment derived from the blood of survivors

Serum made from the blood of victims of a viral plague? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how the Zombie Apocalypse gets started.

Posted by SteveS 2014-09-14 01:58|| 2014-09-14 01:58|| Front Page Top

The Blood Serum market is much safer than the powdered hipp'o tooth cure. Just say'n.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-09-14 02:20|| 2014-09-14 02:20|| Front Page Top

#3 Survivors, SteveS, The theory here is that blood serum of the survivors contains anti-virus antibodies. The problem is, I'm pretty sure immunity to virus is cellular not humoral.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-09-14 07:12|| 2014-09-14 07:12|| Front Page Top

#4 It's both. The anti-serum could be very useful.

The bigger problem is the lack of supportive care in West Africa. One of the reasons why the American docs survived at Emory was that they had first-class supportive care, simple things like transfusions, IV fluids, nutrition, attention to electrolyte imbalances, etc.

Ebola looks to be similar to cholera in this regard: if you can just keep the patient alive they'll usually recover on their own. West Africa can't keep any sick person alive.

Posted by Steve White 2014-09-14 10:45|| 2014-09-14 10:45|| Front Page Top

#5 "Black Market in Blood Serum Emerging Amid Ebola Outbreak"

What could go wrong?

Posted by Barbara 2014-09-14 10:50|| 2014-09-14 10:50|| Front Page Top

#6 There are a great many possible blood-borne diseases that can come along with the ride, particularly from those who have been in Africa. Therefore the necessity for proper screening and handling. The desperately ill who have the resources to pay may not be interested in all that red tape. Black market blood products will most likely cause more problems.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-09-14 14:56|| 2014-09-14 14:56|| Front Page Top

#7 So Steve, what tools and procedures can be used in a remote village to drop the rate of infection of caregivers (and the folks who bury the dead) from whatever sky-high rate it is now? They can't rely on the medical institutions, which were swamped long ago, or hope for some aid miracle. Care for the sick has to be local.
That means few resources and very little training, so whatever is tried has to be very cheap and very simple.

Random thoughts from a non-medical person:
Build a "sick hut" and if someone dies there burn it. Small place, with something relatively disposable for the roof. Most people won't have ebola. Needs elbow grease and a bit of gasoline. (It rains a lot)

Buckets with bleach water to dunk hands, utensils, clothing, everything. (They're trying to do this already for hand washing)

Only touch someone sick, or their clothes, with bleached rags over your hands, and put the rags back in the bleach water when you're done. (Needs bleach, supply of cloth, and training and a bit of indoctrination--"Never use sick rags for clothing!")

Use something disposable for the bed for the sick: a shallow trench piled full with leaves? (Always burn the contents, no matter what the disease was.)

I don't know what the caregiver infection rate is, but people write as though it was 100% for the unprotected. Could things along this line drop it enough to be useful?

Posted by James 2014-09-14 15:18|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com 2014-09-14 15:18|| Front Page Top

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