I realize the actual "Ebola" virus is not yet a problem here, but I figure "if you're prepared for an Ebola outbreak, you're prepared for anything".

What would it take?

Don't drink poop water, don't eat the dead, don't play in blood or other bodily fluids without precautions, and practice basic hygiene.  There you will be Ebola free.

I think I can live with that.

alone in the woods

Being able to isolate yourself from the carriers should prevent you from getting it.
Unfortunately this will be near impossible if the disease takes ahold here in the US.

Nurse here. I am watching this situation unfold. I would say the time to talk about preping is now and if an out break happens in China India or Japan then it's time for action. You basically need to have food and water and at worst have a place to avoid contact with people.  On the whole America is a safe zone and Ebola would have a tougher time spreading here. I am on my phone and if anyone want I can flesh out what to do.

Doc Cindy


Doesn't stress ebola specifically, but a good resource regardless.

Ebola is now in ATL
Walking Dead started in ATL.
Just sayin.

Good advice. It is a virus so best thing to do really is not to get the virus.



 

The real fear is a virus with a high mortality rate that mutates into a strain that that be transmitted much more easily.  That's the doomsday scenario, and the only way to prep for that is to have a real bug out plan (no pun intended...)



Right now it's Avian Flu sub-types that we most need to worry about.  If that bug ever became as transmissable as common rhinovirii are, the resultant pandemic would kill a significant population of Earth's inhabitants.

I'm not too worried about it getting out of the hospitals.  But it's a little more complicated than this, no?  I mean, if it gets out and goes wild in the community, and one of your family members is infected, you're going to provide care to them, right?

Mask on you and the patient, full body fluid precautions, etc.  Probably have to burn the bedding, bed, and house when you're done.  (Not sure whether I'm kidding about that.  How long does Ebola virus last outside the body?)

I would think good infectious disease control preps would include something akin to MOP gear.  Masks, gloves, maybe disposable coveralls.

Hold your breath!

link to a study where animals infected each other with zero contact.... airborne transmission.

I haven't found data for Ebola specifically, but this paper reviews a bunch of nasty bacteria and viruses, including Ebola's cousin Marburg:

http://aem.asm.org/content/74/3/555.full.pdf+html

In fomites (stuff coming from the patient or that the patient touches-- sheets, clothes, scabs, dried blood, etc.), Marburg is stable for about 4-5 days and is completely unstable when aerosolized (perhaps due to UV exposure). There's no data for Marburg in water, but many viruses are stable >30 days in water, some much longer.

Ebola is also known to persist for a time in survivors. It's been detected in blood and semen up to 100 days after infection, but the study used a very sensitive detection method (PCR) and presence of virus doesn't mean the patient is still capable of transmitting it (link to PDF). Different bugs have different infective doses. For some bacteria the dose is one bacterium (Q fever), while for others it is many thousands (Salmonella spp.). The same holds for viruses.

I'd bleach everything that even came near to touching the patient, close off the room for a week, then do it again.

Incorrect interpretation. The authors themselves write:



Airborne transmission is a possible interpretation, but it is not proven by the study. Other routes-- which have been observed in the wild-- are possible here.

Carry out a preemptive strike by committing suicide?

My plan...STFA.

The incubation period for Ebola can be 1-3 weeks.  So you could theoretically come into contact with an infected person and not know it.  Likewise, if you are infected, by the time you're symptomatic you've probably already exposed everyone in your house.

In the event of a widespread outbreak in the US, the best way to survive it would be true isolation from the public.  I've read info from leading epidemiologists who recommend being able to completely isolate yourself for 90 days, in the event of a true epidemic.  How many people do you think would have the ability to completely isolate themselves for three months?  Your own food supply, your own water supply, toiletries, etc., and no contact with the public.

If you had no choice and had to move through public spaces, wear proper fitting protective equipment at all times: protective glasses or goggles that would prevent droplets from reaching your eyes, mask, gloves.  All of those things would (mostly) prevent you from being exposed to others' bodily fluids and fluid discharge (sneezing, spitting, blood, urine, etc).  

Ebola is a virus, so just like during flu season: good hand washing, avoiding touching your mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth) with your nasty hands without thorough hand washing with a strong soap and clean water first, and regular bathing and good personal hygiene would be highly advisable.

If you become infected in the US, I believe your chances of survival are greater here than anywhere.  We have the ability to provide IV hydration, transfuse blood products to treat hemorrhagic conditions, and we can offer ventilatory life support if necessary.  That's all the stuff that the dark continent lacks by-in-large, which is part of the reason their mortality rates are so very high.

I'm no expert, and not an epidemiologist by any stretch.  I've been in healthcare around 15 years, and work in hospital daily practicing anesthesia.  I am watching all this very closely.

Keep your distance, avoid the public as much as possible, wash hands with sterilizing cleaners regularly and maybe even use gloves whenever in public... You can go up from there all the way to "in the bunker on filtered and UV'd air that is being recycled and supplemented with bottled O2 or a rebreather type system, recycling your water supply to extend the stores and eating stored food. You'd need more than 90 days too, since that assumes the outbreak itself dies out fairly fast in your area and doesn't come back around. Though, at 90 days it's likely that things will have either gotten completely out of control or almost entirely under control.

I'm all ears, and I think a few others would be interested as well if you wanna go into detail whenever you have time.

OP, research Barrier Nursing, type in "barrier nursing .pdf" into google and you will find tons of manuals.

It is simply a matter of hygiene and Personal Protective Equipment and following proper barrier nursing protocol.

A good start is to purchase N95 or N100 Surgical masks, and Nitrite exam gloves (preferably 6mil thickness)................add, isolation gowns, head caps, booties, facemask, scrubs, googles, if you want to be super prepared; a $100 bucks will get you properly prepared if you shop wisely (Amazon.com).

And the 'Feds to TEST vaccines on humans'   --Drudge headline 1Aug14

Good info., Thanks...
Where's a good place to buy Clorox by the pallet again?

Does UV kill viruses?

Where are you located?  I can probably spare a pallet from my personal clorox fort.  

It would be a big mistake to think that getting ready for ebola means “you're prepared for anything". If you prepare for ebola you prepare for that, or some similar pandemic but it doesn’t mean you prepare for everything. In fact you, could do that, and completely overlook other fields or modern survivalism and preparedness that address far more likely events. Its like “I’m getting ready for the end of the world, so by default I’m ready for everything”. No, doesn’t work like that.
Even within pandemics, there may be some variations as well. If the vector of propagation is humans you want to avoid human, contact, but if its for example mosquitos you want to avoid the outdoors and wilderness in favor or fumigated areas where the vector is much better controlled. It will also depend is the vector spreads the pandemic by mechanical (surface contact) or biological transmission (bites).
ISED8U covered it pretty well. You’re looking at avoiding human contact, losing the door an not opening it to anyone should work, no need to seal the place and have a HEPA filter installed. You’re looking at staying put, bugging in basically, which means you should have the supplies needed to stay feed, have enough water to drink and wash up, and means for staying warm and cooking your food if needed. Enough toilet paper, soap, cleaning supplies and lots of patience. If you have to go out durink a serious outbreak, you don’t want to mess with something like ebola so a fully sealed NBC suit and respirator would be needed to be 100% sure you’re nto catching it and bringing it back home. Having said that, even that involves multiple risk factors so staying put until its safe to go out again would be the best thing to do.



Dont buy it in liquid form, buy granulate and tablets. It stores overal better and safer, far more compact, easy to store and move around and you can easily control the concentration depending on the inteded use. Its usually pretty cheap too.
bleach tablets
Tablets in cards

FerFAL

Never knew this existed.  They are in stock at my local Wal Mart.  I think I will break my own rule and actually go into that store today to pick come up to try.  Thank you sir.  

Hey you're welcome. If you want to give it a try, sometimes you find these in dollar stores, some of the older mom and pop type hardware stores or places where they sell cleaning supplies in smaller towns.
FerFAL

Cool!

Not sure offhand about ebola but yes. Given the closed system I was thinking more about just killing off what's already in your system so it didn't build up over time, not just ebola but all the usual bacteria and viruses we deal with every day to more exotic stuff. The catch with UV is making sure you have enough, and the ability to keep that system going for long enough. It's not like most of us have spare UV emitters powerful enough to do that job just sitting around waiting to be put into use. It's one thing to sterilize a small volume, another to sterilize air being moved through a system at a reasonable rate.

Honestly, I was mostly being sarcastic, since the setup I described would have to be self sufficient, positive pressure, tough enough to maintain those conditions and hidden enough that you didn't have people trying to force their way in when things were obviously a mess and everyone is looking for a safe haven from the virus. But hey, if you had a spare fortune sitting around, go for it. With ebola as it exists you'd be fine with far less extreme protection.

I am also going to grab some!  Thanks!

Thank you for this post, some good info IMO.

One way might be to not bring folks who have it to the US.

Nope it's pretty simple.

If you suspect a family member has ebola they should be in a hospital.  If you have to touch that family member for whatever reason don't touch their bodily fluids without a protective barrier and it wouldn't hurt to just burn their bedding but washing it would more than likely do the trick.

I don't recall the exact survivability of the virus outside of the human body but it is a fragile virus when on it's own.  Left in a pile of puke, poop, uncooked meaty tissue, blood etc.... in a warm humid environment in bodly fluid  it can probably stay alive for a good bit.  So if you have to touch something like that do so with protective barriers.

Masks and gloves. Chlorine and alcohol.

Great thread.

Thanks ferfal, I didn't know bleach tablets existed either.

Ebola usually burns itself out...it debilitates and kills before the patient can infect a significant number of people.  There was a good nonfiction book on  three different biological events called "The Hot Zone"...it's a pretty good first hand account of being at the center of a deadly epidemic.  This outbreak however, has a lower than usual kill rate (only 60%)...usually it's up to the 90s, so I wonder if people might be ambulatory for a bit longer with this one.

Either way, this may be a really big outbreak, but it won't become a worldwide epidemic.

I heard the Director, CDC talking today.  He definitely dumbed down the message and glossed over a few things.  But he was generally credible and  the bottom line is you are not going to catch this like a common cold.

All the same, be safe

All this crazy stuff has me thinking about looking into NBC gear, but where to start?
I think I need to be looking at stuff that will cover the N and the C pretty well if I'm going to bother with it at all. I like my stuff to be as multipurposed as possible.

(And please don't lecture me on the need to just avoid exposure instead. I get it. I'd just like the option to be part of the solution if at all possible in such circumstances.)

Those who are currently known to be infected are the group you should worry about the least, regardless of where they are.

I'm pretty sure I could.

The answer to a great many survival situations is self-sufficiency (duh), so that's been the target of my "prepping" for years. I don't mean a closet full of MRE's, but rather the ability to produce, on-site, what you need to stay alive.  Extensive gardens, meat critters, food preservation techniques, potable water source, heat, shelter... these are the focus of my preps.  Much longer than three months would get pretty iffy, but - although it wouldn't be much fun - I think I could make it at least that long.  The hardest part would probably be mental; keeping the kids sane with little outside contact.

Not that I'm under misconceptions about being able to go it alone for any extended period of time... community/groups are important.  But I'd much prefer to be in a group of highly self-reliant folks.



I don't think so.  Ebola's relatively easy to avoid.  But there are other nasties out there, and I 'spect that, should it come to pass, the one that takes us down will be something new that simply moves faster than we can figure out how to get out of the way.

ETA:
One thing about this outbreak is troubling, though.  Although the only real way to contract the disease is by contact with an infected person's bodily fluids, some ~1500 people have been infected.  For it to spread, there has to be an uninterrupted chain of contact - person B plays with person A's blood, person C with person B's, person D with person C's... etc. etc.  It seems unlikely that that kind of intimate contact would go on unbroken for very long... at some point somebody's got to be smart enough to wash their damn hands.  But yet, the outbreak worsens....  

CDC Ebola guidelines

OK, educate me.

I am defiantly not an expert but these are my observations and thoughts:

Without a decontamination station full on NBC gear would not be very useful because you need to take it off at some point.

Gas masks are only as useful as their filtration level...

I belive that some basice, common sense coverage would go along way should you need to go out or get somewhere through an infected area.  For that a non porous tyvec suit, surgical mask, and good pair of safety glasses or goggles, and disposable rubber gloves would do as much as reasonably possible without spending thousands on true NBC suites with air supplies and a decon room.

I have actually done just that, for not much money you can get a tyvec suit, surgical masks, eyes, and disposable gloves, all items that could be useful for other tasks like: insulation work,
or painting, body work etc...  Doesn't take much to give you that extra barrier, especially against something that is not technically airborne but could be contracted by placing hand on hand rail which was recently touched by infected persons sweaty hand.  For me its a very cheap insurance that could come in handy.  I think I spent $30 on a few extra things and combined with items I already have it gives me enough for 4 adults.  I am also going to pickup some of those bleach tabs that ferfal posted, those make bleach portable and store able for any SHTF.


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I agree 100%.  Wife and I have been working on our "homestead" for almost two years now and while we are pretty isolated, and our garden isn't doing well this year, I think we could make it 3 months.  Any longer then that would be really tough.  For me that is a good number/time limit because I can't see any situation that would have us isolated from every one, or any possible barter for that long.  Even a pandemic I give it a month or two tops and with some basic precaution I believe you could begin networking with neighbors.
While I am not striving to be a doomsday prepper, I do feel it necessary to obtain a basic level of emergency preparedness and 3 months worth of food, heat, and a couple different sources of water will get us through any realistic common sense scenario.

Don't get any on ya...

There will be tons of useful data derived from the two American patients.  If they were treated in Africa I don't know that we would learn nearly as much.  



The problem will be when an infected person makes it into the U.S. and starts spreading Ebola through the schools or whatever.  A mildly sick person with sweaty palms pushes a shopping cart for a while.  Then someone else gets the cart...  You get the idea.  Anyone who ever had kids can understand how things just get passed along like wild fire.  That's the real danger here.  And there will be no way to just sit back and let it burn out locally like they do in Africa.  



 

Okay, so bleach/water reliably kills this stuff? If so, then I would think you could build up a decon protocol consisting of blowing someone off with a heavy concentration bleach solution coming from the end of a pressure washer and scrubbing their suit down. Rinse, wash, repeat.

What kind of suit would stand up to that? Do you think yours would?

Make your own.  Pool Shock + Water.

How-to Article: Linky

Mine would not.  What I have is nothing more then a tyvek suit, surgical mask, saftey glasses, and rubber gloves.  Pretty much disposable but if there were some type of proglonged incident I would try my best not to just throw it out, incase I needed it multiple times.  
I would stay away from a pressure washer no matter the suit.  I would pressure wash my ATV but not myself especialy if I was worryed about spraying fluids everywhere.

Yeah, pressure washer is a little overboard. I'm trying to think of something else to use. Maybe this?

What about the skeeter's?
They can carry viruses.

Run...?