Re: Ebola, Sierra Leone, Liberia
By: Poindexter Fortran to Khelair on Fri Sep 26 2014 07:44:55
Reading through the CIA World Book online (your tax dollars at work!) I was saddened by the HIV rates in some of these countries. When you're in an environmentally challenged country with limited infrastructure and resources, having 20-40% of your country infected with a potentially fatal disease would be crippling to begin with. Adding an infectious hemmoragic fever just seems like icing on the cake.
Oh god yeah, they're horrific. Hearing all of that crap secondhand from my son's mother about the situation in Kenya, which is really well off, comparatively speaking, was still heartbreaking. I've got a good friend who does business in dozens of foreign countries who is African by birth. He actually had offered, at one point, to have my son and I come stay with him for awhile; the reality was that it would've been damn tough for us to establish ourselves, there, because of the fact of my pasty whiteness. As a well established world-traveller and businessman, I'll take his word for the ability of my caucasian ass to get employed on his home turf.
Anyway, I digressed (as per my usual MO), but the reason that I brought it up is that he's been HIV positive for as long as I've known him, which is over 15 years now. The last time he was in the states (which he now avoids due to some of our international travel regulations, afaik) for a duration, where he does own properties, he was complaining about the rates going for all of his HIV treating drugs. It cost him like 5% of the multiple thousands of dollars per month that it would've cost him via USFDA approved marketers in the US to be able to keep getting the drugs that are the reason he's still alive. He just kept getting them from Africa, and at some points, eastern Europe. I mean it's neither here nor there with the discussion regarding Ebola (which I'm going to have to talk to him about soon now that I've thought of it), but goddamn. Pharmaceutical prices over there are down _that low_ for anybody to be able to afford them and they _still_ have rampant, blanket coverage of that stuff.
Until you mentioned it, though, I never really thought about HIV in combination with the HIV epidemic. Dear christ, that's a huge death sentence spike there. Gahhhh.
I was surprised to see some mainstream news covering the airline aspect of disease transmission when it reached Lagos. but was shocked to hear they flew infected US aid workers back to the US for treatment. Some of the conspiracy folks said they saw the victims walking off the plane, which would have been impossible. I can't confirm that, though.
Yeah, with the normal kind of crap that I read I've waded through some hip- deep conspiracy theory on all of the origins of Ebola and the like. I hadn't seen anything about Ebola victims walking off of a plane yet, but I've got to say, the whole official story in and of itself really did not come off to me as entirely plausible. Like, for instance, why did they land where they did, instead of at the CDC HQ and contagion level 5 facility? Unless, of course, there are more of these places since I last read a good book on the threat of global pandemics. I'll admit, it's been like 12-15 years since I've read one, and I don't even remember which one it was now. It was allegedly by one of the CDC dudes, though, and went heavy into the technical and biological details of it all.
I mean also, we've had AfriCom established for how long now? They've got to have military hospitals established there, though last I heard they _were_ still flying severely injured & maimed individuals back to the hospital in Germany, through Rammstein, for in depth treatment. It seems like now, if nothing else, there should be a little bit more of an infrastructure there that would support us building a facility able to research that kind of crap on home turf. It surprised me that we brought it back here, too. A lot. That seems like a really unnecessary risk. Unless, of course, some of the tinfoil hatters are right, and we've had a vaccine for it [and the people who actually 'matter'] the whole time. :P
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