Ebola

[Ian A. York]

In article <D3z48s.3tC at umassd.edu> dborden at umassd.edu writes:

>am am going to buy The Coming Plauge.  But what I really want to know is how
>real is the threat of this Ebola virus wiping out, basically, human kind the 

Who knows?  Your question breaks down into two parts:  (1)  Can a virus 
wipe out 90% of a species?  -yes, sure.  I think the first round of 
myxoma in Australia may have done that to the rabbits (of course being 
rabbits they replaced that pretty fast, so you'd never know that now.)  
The Black Plague (not a virus, but an illustration) may have taken out 
75% of the human population of Europe (someone check me on that, I'm 
going from memory).  (2)  Are humans today any different?  Well, There 
are reasons to believe that diseases of the right (i.e. wrong) kind 
could spread faster becasue of international travel, crowding, etc.  On 
the other hand there is the current wide-spread understanding of 
epidemiology (cough cough), altruism on a personal and national scale 
(cough cough cough), enthusiastic support of public health initiatives 
(cough hack wheeze), and all-round well-organized and appropriate 
emergency responses (erhrrm).  You may as well kiss your ass goodbye 
today and beat the rush.  

Seriously, there is a possibility, but it's impossible to quantify it.  
There are just too many unknowns.  I think that if there was an outbreak, 
rapid identification and quarentine would be the only useful response, 
but who knows?  Epidemiology is complicated and most potential plagues 
that have arisen have burnt themselves out without ever exploding.  

Being worried is a reasonable response, depending on how much of a 
fatalist you are.  Frankly, there isn't much else you can do.  Encourage 
your government to support the CDC, encourage public health initiatives 
in the third world - those refugee camps are bombs and if they go off, 
they'll take you with them - and all that.

As for man-made - no.  Deliberately man-spread? -possible but difficult 
and, we all hope, nobody is that stupid.  

Ian
-- 
Ian York   (york at mbcrr.harvard.edu)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney St., Boston MA 02115
Phone (617)-632-4328     Fax  (617)-632-2627