# ebola and eating out of the trash



## spectacular (Oct 2, 2014)

enough to scare me... thoughts?


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## scummy1990 (Oct 2, 2014)

I don't think it spreads like that


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## scummy1990 (Oct 2, 2014)

I mean I guess u could from spit or other bodily fluids if u ate after someone with it lol


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## scummy1990 (Oct 2, 2014)

Lol I just looked it up now I'm worried


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## Tude (Oct 2, 2014)

awesome  Boy I hope they contain that shit in TX. Our college is working on something as we have students from around the world here - and they go home to visit ... This states how long it lives in semen and blood - was wondering more about the saliva. Article also states that it is only infectious AFTER the victim becomes ill. So how come the people on the airline and family members who came in contact with guy in TX are being monitored for this when he was supposedly "not" infectious at the time? 
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You've heard it again and again: to get Ebola, you need to have direct contact with the bodily fluids — such as vomit, urine, or blood — of someone who is already sick and symptomatic to get the disease.

But what, exactly, does that mean? Here's a more concrete guide on how the virus can move from one person to another.

*How you can get Ebola*
1) You can get the virus if you have "direct contact" with a range of bodily fluids from a sick person, including blood, saliva, breast milk, stool, semen, tears, vomit, and urine. "Direct contact" means these fluids need to get into your broken skin (such as a wound) or touch your mucous membranes (mouth, nose, eyes, vagina).

2) So you can get Ebola by kissing or sharing food with someone who is infectious.

3) Mothers with Ebola can give the disease to their babies. Ebola spreads through breastfeeding — even after recovery from the disease. As one study put it, "It seems prudent to advise breastfeeding mothers who survive (Ebola) to avoid breastfeeding for at least some weeks after recovery and to provide them with alternative means of feeding their infants."

THE EBOLA VIRUS HAS BEEN ABLE TO LIVE IN SEMEN FOR UP TO 82 DAYS4) You can get Ebola through sex with an Ebola patient. The virus has been able to live in semen up to 82 days after a patient became symptomatic, which means sexual transmission — even with someone who has survived the disease for months — is possible.

5) You can get the virus by eating wild animals infected with Ebola or coming into contact with their bodily fluids. The fruit bat is believed to be the animal reservoir for Ebola, and when it's prepared for a meal or eaten raw, people get sick.

So you can get the virus through exposure to bat secretions. However, if you cook a bat infected with Ebola and then eat it, you won't get sick because the virus dies during cooking.

6) You can get Ebola through contact with an infected surface. Though Ebola is easily killed with disinfectants like bleach, if it isn't caught, it can live outside the body on, say, a doorknob or counter top, for several hours. In body fluids, like blood, the virus can survive for several days. So you'd need to touch an infected surface, and then put your hands in your mouth and eyes.

This is why the funerals of Ebola victims are problematic. Someone who has died from the virus will have a very high viral load. Since the virus can live in bodily fluids on their body, if you participate in the ritual washing of an Ebola victim and then touch your hands to your face, you could get the virus.

7) You could also get the virus by working in a biosafety-level-4 lab that studies Ebola, touching lab specimens, and then putting your contaminated hands in your mouth, eyes or a cut.

8) You can get Ebola by being pricked with a needle or syringe that has been contaminated with the virus. This has been a source of transmission for health workers, but unless you're sharing needles with Ebola victims, this isn't likely.

*How you can't get Ebola*
1) You can't get Ebola from someone who is not already sick. The virus only turns up in people's bodily fluids after a person starts to feel ill, and only then can they spread it to another person.

This is why health officials say they are not worried about the other passengers on the Texas patient's flight into the United States. At that time, the patient was asymptomatic and therefore not a risk to those around him.

YOU CAN'T GET EBOLA FROM MOSQUITOES2) You can't get Ebola from mosquitoes. The CDC says, "Only mammals (for example, humans, bats, monkeys and apes) have shown the ability to spread and become infected with Ebola virus."

3) You usually can't get Ebola through coughing or sneezing. The virus isn't airborne, thankfully, and experts expect that it will never become airborne. But, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, "If a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person's eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease." This happens rarely and usually only affects health workers or those caring for the sick.

*The bottom line: Ebola is difficult to catch*
As you'll probably have noted, Ebola isn't very easy to transmit. The scenarios under which it spreads are very specific. And Ebola doesn't spread quickly, either. A mathematical epidemiologist who studies Ebola wrote in the Washington Post, "The good news is that Ebola has a lower reproductive rate than measles in the pre-vaccination days or the Spanish flu." He found that each Ebola case produces between 1.3 and 1.8 secondary cases. That means an Ebola victim usually only infects about one other person. Compare that with measles, which creates 17 secondary cases.

If you do the math, that means a single case in the US could lead to one or two others, but since we have robust public health measures here, it probably won't go further than that. Compare that to West Africa, which is now dealing with upwards of 6,000 cases in a completely broken health system. That's whereexperts say the worry about Ebola should be placed.

Most people's views of Ebola are probably informed by Hollywood \u2014 they think of it as a deadly and contagious virus that swirls around the world, striking everyone in its path and causing them to hemorrhage from their eyeballs, ears and mouth until there is no more blood to spill.

In reality, Ebola is something quite different. About half of the people who contract Ebola die. The others return to a normal life after a months-long recovery that can include periods of hair loss, sensory changes, weakness, fatigue, headaches, eye and liver inflammation.

As for the blood: While Ebola can cause people to hemorrhage, about half of Ebola sufferers ever experience that Biblical bleeding that's become synonymous with the virus.

\r\n
More often than not, Ebola strikes like the worst and most humiliating flu you could imagine. People get the sweats, along with body aches and pains. Then they start vomiting and having uncontrollable diarrhea. These symptoms can appear anywhere between two and 21 days after exposure to the virus. Sometimes, they go into shock. Sometimes, they bleed. Again, about half of those infected with the virus die, and this usually happens fairly quickly \u2014 within a few days or a couple of weeks of getting sick.

There are five strains of Ebola, four of which have caused the disease in humans: Zaire, Sudan, Ta\u00ef Forest, and Bundibugyo. The fifth, Reston, has infected nonhuman primates only. Though scientists haven't been able to confirm this, the animal host of Ebola is widely believed to be the fruit bat, and the virus only seldomly makes the leap into humans.

The Ebola virus is extremely rare. Among the leading causes of death in Africa, it only accounts for a tiny fraction. People are much more likely to die from AIDS, respiratory infections, or diarrhea, as you can see.

The current outbreak involves the Zaire strain, which was discovered in 1976 \u2014 the year Ebola was first identified in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). That same year, the virus was also discovered in South Sudan.

Since 1976, there have only been about 20 known Ebola outbreaks. Until last year, the\u00a0 total impact of these outbreaks included 2,357 cases and 1,548 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They all occurred in isolated or remote areas of Africa, and Ebola never had a chance to go very far.

And that's what makes the 2014 outbreak so remarkable: the virus has spread to five countries in Africa plus America, and has already infected more than 6,200 people. It has killed more than 3,000 people. That is more than double the sum total of all previous outbreaks combined.



http://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/6878695/ebola-virus-outbreak-symptoms


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## spectacular (Oct 2, 2014)

that it's not able to be spread until person is feeling sick is comforting...


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## Tude (Oct 2, 2014)

bizzolizzo said:


> that it's not able to be spread until person is feeling sick is comforting...



yeah that is what the article states - yet this is from CNN today - unless they are taking no chances ... and are gathering everyone this guy came in contact with before and after showing signs of infection. article also states it's the first time he's been in the states.
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Health officials are reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had contact with Duncan, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services said Thursday. These are people who are still being questioned because they may have crossed paths with the patient either at the hospital, at his apartment complex or in the community.

"Out of an abundance of caution, we're starting with this very wide net, including people who have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient's home," spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. "The number will drop as we focus in on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection."

The number of direct contacts who have been identified and are being monitored right now is "more than 12," a federal official told CNN on Thursday.

(I didn't copy entire article as the internets are loaded with this at the moment)
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/health/ebola-us/index.html?hpt=hp_t1


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## Matt Derrick (Oct 2, 2014)

dude, you can't catch ebola from dumpster diving. like a lot of what @Tude posted above, unless your food is covered in bodily secretions or animal shit (_*extremely *_unlikely), you're not going to get ebola from dumpster diving. in fact, no on i've ever known that has dumpster dived has ever gotten sick from it. ever.

just be smart. don't take home a bunch of produce that's been sitting in a bunch of rotting meat all day. wash your veggies when you get home. check the product for mold. you know, all the things you would normally do with food. the one benefit of the USA's obsession with plastic packaging is that the majority of stuff you get out of the dumpster is going to have a protective layer over it.

no one should fear food from the dumpster.


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## spectacular (Oct 2, 2014)

Matt Derrick said:


> dude, you can't catch ebola from dumpster diving. like a lot of what @Tude posted above, unless your food is covered in bodily secretions or animal shit (_*extremely *_unlikely), you're not going to get ebola from dumpster diving. in fact, no on i've ever known that has dumpster dived has ever gotten sick from it. ever.
> 
> just be smart. don't take home a bunch of produce that's been sitting in a bunch of rotting meat all day. wash your veggies when you get home. check the product for mold. you know, all the things you would normally do with food. the one benefit of the USA's obsession with plastic packaging is that the majority of stuff you get out of the dumpster is going to have a protective layer over it.
> 
> no one should fear food from the dumpster.



not so much dumpster food fear but clamshells and takeout boxes from random people found outside of restaurants or in the trash sometimes full of food that makes me nervous


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## spectacular (Oct 2, 2014)

makes me wonder if there are any others who come back from that region thinking they have the flu or some shit


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## Matt Derrick (Oct 2, 2014)

bizzolizzo said:


> not so much dumpster food fear but clamshells and takeout boxes from random people found outside of restaurants or in the trash sometimes full of food that makes me nervous



again, very unlikely. considering that in 2014 there were 600 cases of ebola infection, and 300 of those survived... making your odds of getting the ebola virus roughly about 0.01 percent.


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## Hylyx (Oct 2, 2014)

Here's a handy chart for all your worries:


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## Kim Chee (Oct 2, 2014)

Aaaargh! Stay outta me slimey, bearded, ebola and rat infested dumpsters.

They're all mine


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## Tude (Oct 2, 2014)

mmmmmmmichael said:


> Aaaargh! Stay outta me slimey, bearded, ebola and rat infested dumpsters.
> 
> They're all mine



LOL where were you mmmmmmmmichael when I was doing warrior dash 5k - you would have loved these delicious dumpsters! - and had to do 4 of these nasties in the first leg of the race - you know they didn't bother to clean them out before they added more mud and water. Smelled pretty rude too. Woe to the ones who fell down in them too - you know you ate some.


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## Dameon (Oct 2, 2014)

Seems pretty unlikely you'll catch it from leftovers, even if you had the supremely bad luck to get leftovers from somebody that had ebola, which isn't many like Matt said. And they would've had to, like, drool all over their food.


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## Kim Chee (Oct 2, 2014)

I caught food poisoning once from eating food from a dumpster. ...only one time out of the many times I've done it. 

I wouldn't be too concerned about ebola unless the dumpster were in West Africa.


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## spectacular (Oct 2, 2014)

just read an article about how people offered bids to do hazmat on the guy's apartment refused. plus the response from the guy's local hospital was neglectful to the point where they were handling his infected bedsheets like normal and let him walk from the hospital sick. he then was vomiting up everywhere. i donno. i think the "oh we're the united states" mentality might end up being our downfall since it leaves the blindspot of pride and that comes before any fall


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## Boneless (Oct 3, 2014)

It's moments like these that I'm glad that I live on a desert island.


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## Kim Chee (Oct 3, 2014)

If ebola were widespread here, I wouldn't be anywhere near a dumpster and I'd probably wear one of those Michael Jackson masks. 

You may not be able to get ebola from a dumpster, but you absolutely are able to get ebola from whatever was used to mop up the puke and diarrhea from an infected individual and placed in a dumpster.

I can dumpster dive in West Africa and prove it. 

Errrr. Scratch that, maybe not.


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## spectacular (Oct 3, 2014)

yeah scary for sure. yet i had a revelation last night and thought a bit about it... i'm like come at me ebrola cuz if it's gonna be a pandemic there's no use pussyfooting around since some foodservice workers don't wash their hands and could pass it on even if i'm wearing a mask and gloves and obsessively washing my hands. in other words why walk around scared


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## spectacular (Oct 3, 2014)

Boneless said:


> It's moments like these that I'm glad that I live on a desert island.


im thinking about relocating to some remote dry area


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## Anagor (Oct 12, 2014)

In my humble opinion you don't have to care about Ebola while dumpster diving in the US. It's extremely unlikely you would be infected by it now. Okay, someone infected just coming from Africa might have thrown away some half eaten burger and along with it some body fluid and you come in contact with it. But how likely is that?

Said that it's most important to contain this disease as soon as possible. It hasn't reached Europe or the US yet (only one or two instances) but if it gets spread, we really have a problem. That's not the case yet but it could be. So if (US and Europe) governments are for any use, they should act now. My opinion.


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## Matt Derrick (Oct 12, 2014)

look, i'm not pointing this statement directly at anyone. and i can't think of a nice way to say it so i'm just not going to be nice.

if you're genuinely concerned about contracting ebola from eating out of the trash... if it even crosses your mind for more than a few seconds... you're an idiot.

the odds of you getting ebola are so astronomically high, that you have a better chance of a meteor coming through the atmostphere of earth and disinigrating into the size of a marble, and then shooting through your right eyeball as you're walking down the street at exactly 2:07pm next tuesday.

don't buy into the media hype.


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## Kim Chee (Oct 12, 2014)

Matt Derrick said:


> if you're genuinely concerned about contracting ebola from eating out of the trash... if it even crosses your mind for more than a few seconds... you're an idiot.



I'm not dwelling on it. For the time being, the average dumpster in the US is probably safe. This is of course subject to change should ebola cases here increase.

Maybe I'm overly cautious, but I would hate to see people read this and decide dumpsters are a viable source of safe food should there be an outbreak here (because they wouldn't be in my opinion).


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## Matt Derrick (Oct 12, 2014)

mmmmmmmichael said:


> This is of course subject to change should ebola cases here increase.



*slaps forehead*

ok, correct me if i'm wrong here. how many deaths have been caused by ebola recently? oh yeah, ONE:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/10/08/ebola-texas-dallas-death/16914319/

ONE!!!! one person! out of how many billion? why are we even _discussing _this possibility?

sorry, i'm just so sick of hearing about this bullshit, the only reason it's even a subject of discussion is because the media won't stop shoving it down our fucking throats every fucking day. ebola cases happen ALL THE FUCKING TIME and no one worries about it until ONE guy dies in a texas hospital, but this time around the media won't shut the fuck up about it even though it happens like 300 times a fucking year in the USA. argh.


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## Boneless (Oct 13, 2014)

Scratch that desert island comment, there's been two cases in my state.


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## Kim Chee (Oct 13, 2014)

Matt Derrick said:


> *slaps forehead*
> ok, correct me if i'm wrong here. how many deaths have been caused by ebola recently? oh yeah, ONE:
> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/10/08/ebola-texas-dallas-death/16914319/
> ONE!!!! one person! out of how many billion? why are we even _discussing _this possibility?



I'm not disputing the number of cases in the US, but @Boneless seems to not concur with your figures. 

If you look at my post, I am not discussing current ebola infections in the US. I'm not buying into media hype either but nor am I going to continue to dumpster dive should ebola become more prevalent here in the future and carelessly become a victim.


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## Boneless (Oct 15, 2014)

mmmmmmmichael said:


> I'm not disputing the number of cases in the US, but @Boneless seems to not concur with your figures.





mmmmmmmichael said:


> I'm not disputing the number of cases in the US, but @Boneless seems to not concur with your figures.
> 
> If you look at my post, I am not discussing current ebola infections in the US. I'm not buying into media hype either but nor am I going to continue to dumpster dive should ebola become more prevalent here in the future and carelessly become a victim.



I live in Australia, not the US. I'm not arguing with anyone's figures.


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## spectacular (Oct 15, 2014)

Matt Derrick said:


> look, i'm not pointing this statement directly at anyone. and i can't think of a nice way to say it so i'm just not going to be nice.
> 
> if you're genuinely concerned about contracting ebola from eating out of the trash... if it even crosses your mind for more than a few seconds... you're an idiot.
> 
> ...


someone with ebola might eat something while sick and toss it in the trash after landing in an american city somewhere. might sneeze into the air too while people are around to breathe it. while the risk is minimal, i find it's better not to put my hands over my ears and chant about how everyone's an idiot and la la la


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## enocifer (Oct 15, 2014)

Just another media scare tactic. They love to overhype bullshit and get everyone to be afraid of something. It's a method of control. We didn't all die from Anthrax, or bird flu. Likely they're over-sensationalizing it to distract from something else that's goung on.


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## Anagor (Oct 15, 2014)

Hi!



bizzolizzo said:


> someone with ebola might eat something while sick and toss it in the trash after landing in an american city somewhere. might sneeze into the air too while people are around to breathe it. while the risk is minimal, i find it's better not to put my hands over my ears and chant about how everyone's an idiot and la la la



It's not about "to put my hands over my ears and chant about how everyone's an idiot and la la la" ...

Ebola is a potential threat for the US or Europe, no doubt. That's why I think it's urgent to do more to dam up this epidemic in Africa.

But right now there are two (in numbers 2) cases of Ebola in the United States as far as I know. Out of a population of 318,968,000 ...

Right now I wouldn't think about Ebola concerning my personal safety. Even while dumpster diving. Concerning the way you live, it's much, much, much more likely you get injured or killed while hopping trains, hitchhiking with an inexperienced driver who wrecks the car, grab into an infected syringe while dumpster diving or just stumble and fall on your head. 

Just my two cents ...


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## Odin (Oct 15, 2014)

Lot of conflicting information out there. I was wondering if the onset of a cold winter will slow or stop transmission of Ebola and then a google search brings up articles of those saying cold dry weather will increase the chance of it going airborne. When I checked on opinions of it going airborne most say it is unlikely that it will because in the 100 or so years of studying viruses a major change in transmission method has not been seen. (They used HIV epidemic as an example... after all these years its not airborn only body fluids shared needles exct...)


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## Art101 (Oct 15, 2014)

Ebola isn't exactly the flu(which kills more people that ebola). Not to mention we do live in a first world nation with first world medical care. Im sick of friggin ebola and the crazy paranoia that seems to be surrounding it.


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## Kim Chee (Oct 15, 2014)

I don't know why some people here take it so lightly that the number of deaths in this current outbreak are low in relation to world population. You don't have to be a victim of mass hysteria to know that EVERY epidemic or pandemic outbreak begins with only a few infected individuals.



Ghostbo said:


> ?..Not to mention we do live in a first world nation with first world medical care.



First world status gets us no cure all while first world caregivers are still contracting the disease from the people they are treating. I'm not sure what advantages first world status could bring? Dense population centers? Mass transportation?

Enough of this healthy debate about ebola, I don't want to hear about it anymore....waaaaaaa.


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## Odin (Oct 15, 2014)

As I was musing about it... my concern is the transmission method and virulence... of the disease. 
See I kinda think it going airborne is far-fetched but there is that book hot zone and it talks about a true story where a simian version of the virus in lab setting mutated and went airborne in 89
... so there is no reason the human strain can't with enough mutation do it too... the difficulty i have read is that the virus would have to change enough of its genetics to start replicating in your respiratory tissues. throat, bronchi, lungs... without destroying its own functions. thats what makes it unlikely.. and also that although Ebola has flue like symptoms it actually attacks the cardiovascular system after it takes over immune system cells to self replicate. So its nature is not respiratory primarily. 
then again it might be comparing apples and oranges. Just cuz its not airborne does not mean it cant become a huge pandemic. HIV did and its basically the same. The difference might be that Ebola is more virulent. 
Imagine it like this... you have one virus thats like Ebola and is transferred by fluids... but this viruses load when infected is low... so as you contaminate surfaces and environments its not so bad... kinda like dropping a cookie crumb here and there... then there is the current Ebola outbreak where there has been said in news articles that professionals are finding a higher viral load then previous versions. SO with this its more like your walking around with a huge coffee can full of very fine breadcrumbs for making... veal parmigiana... hehe... and as you contact people and surfaces its like your shaking those crumbs all about.

Either way Alaska is looking mighty good right now. Meh then again I got all up in arms for the swine flu... buying face masks and shit. Heh.. somehow I'm more blase' with this at least for now. But I guess thats how you get Captain Tripps. ::eyepatch::


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