Thursday, October 16, 2014

Ebola -- Containing and Preventing Ebola Infection

My comments on the Ebola virus.

Prevention
It seems that the Ebola virus can be disabled by ultraviolet light.  
I would install ultraviolet lights above the doorways to all isolation rooms in hospitals, as well as all of the entrances to homes where Ebola might have some access.  You can now purchase vacuum cleaners and floor mops that have UV lighting built into them, to aid in ensuring a virus-clean room.  If someone is suspected to be infected, I would advise them to use a tanning bed that has UV lighting installed, or use a bank of lights used for treating SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Particularly if there is evidence of the virus accumulating under the skin, with the Ebola rash.  UV light can penetrate the skin more safely than puncturing it with needles, and these pucture holes could then cause more bleeding.

Hospitals are a major source of new infections of Ebola.
All hospitals should have UV lights installed inside their air-handling systems.  All hospitals should have separate buildings where highly contagious persons can be brought through a separate entrance from the rest of the hospital and where there is outdoor space open to the sun, between the buildings.  The air handling systems should be completely separate.  The staff should not be shared between the two buildings.  Each of these buildings should have its own, separate staff, for each and every hospital function.
A fan should be placed in the window to evacuate air from each room through a filter to the outside so that air flows away from the doorway to the room.


One Ebola researcher avoided contracting the disease after working with Ebola-infected people and cutting his hand, by drinking a half of a bottle of hard liquor.  It is very possible that alcohol can dissolve some of the factors that are produced by the virus to maintain its virulence, perhaps giving the immune system some precious time to work.

Quarrantine of people who are moving between Ebola-affected areas and non-Ebola affected areas is essential.

Wearing a mask, washing hands before and after using gloves, and wearing goggles is essential if you are trying to help someone who is affected. One person who removed their mask and worked with Ebola patients decided she was probably infected and proceeded to do a lot of clean-up of hospital rooms where patients had died.  Doing the cleanup might have killed off much of the virus that was in contact with her skin and face and might have even penetrated her skin enough to kill off any Ebola that had not had time to get deeper into her system.  So doing cleanup with virus-killing chemicals might be a good activity to do if you feel you have been infected. 

Because Ebola seems to be protected in caves long term, putting people into a cavelike setting to recover probably isn't such a great idea.  Open sunlight might be helpful in killing off at least surface viruses. Being indoors with Ebola is not a good thing.  Ebola likes caves.

One Ebola outbreak near Washington, was begun in a building with no functioning air-handling system.  Every living thing inside ( about 500 monkeys) seemed to become infected, while school children playing nearby outside the building did not become infected.  So fresh air and sunshine might be recommended.  However, direct contact with an infected person would be very bad.  The airborne particles seem to not be able to get further than 10 feet or so, unless, perhaps the wind is blowing it toward you, so staying 10 feet away from an infected person in open air should be enough to be relatively safe if you have to pass nearby someone who is infected.

Ebola can form crystals that can last indoors away from UV light.  So don't touch anything rock-like or crystal-like in a cave in an area that has had Ebola in the past.  Anyone doing any kind of archeological dig should be careful of areas where living mammals share a cave with what you are studying.

If you do pick up any rocks or crystals, handle them with gloves and wash the rocks right away, and leave them in the sun to dry.

When anyone dies of Ebola, I am not sure that burying them is such a good idea.  Ebola likes dark places.  I think that cremation is probably best.  Also burning of bedding, clothes and hospital supplies that have body fluids on them is probably better than burying them in our landfills.

If there is an epidemic going on nearby, I would try to have on hand at least 21 days of food and medicine, for everyone in a household so that going out of the house is very minimal.  Staying away from other people, like a self-quarantine, would be good, if possible.  I would also buy a good supply of bleach, drinkable strong alcohol, masks, gloves, gowns, rehydrating fluids to drink, plastic bed coverings, anti-viral drugs, UV lights, blood pressure cuffs, and an electric blanket to create an artificial fever.  Buy curtains like those used in hospitals to surround a bed, and the tracks they run on in the ceiling.  If someone becomes infected they can be helped at home in an emergency.  I would buy a window fan to create negative air pressure from the room if the weather permits, so that air travels away from the doorway into the room.

I would also consider air-conditioning or using cold to treat the ill person.  Ebola seems to be concentrated at the equator, and probably some stages of the illness require a certain degree of heat. 

Helping the patient early on with creating a fever might help at certain stages of the illness.  So using an electric blanket, or a sauna, (privately, of course) or other such place for creating a high-heat on the surface of the skin (not enough to damage the skin, of course) and not so long as to cause heat prostration, would be something to try.  And then alternating that with a very cold period, but not so long as to cause too much stress. Viruses have an optimal temperature that they work in, and going above and below that for just long enough of a time might be helpful.  Temperature is easier to adjust than by using drugs (which the patient might throw up) and if the blood is clotting, the drugs can't get everywhere the virus is. 
Later on in the progression of the disease, putting the person into hypothermia might help them to slow down their metabolism which might slow down the cellular production of the virus.

This is all just my personal opinion after reading and studying viruses and Ebola for a period of time.  I hope that these ideas can help someone.  Since there is no treatment for Ebola, no quick test for Ebola (yet), and no vaccine for it, and not much is known about how it erupts into an epidemic, and considering that there is not much time from the beginning of someone being infected to their death, if it were me being infected, I would want to at least try all these things, because first, we could learn something from it, and second, what would I have to loose?