August 14, 2014 • 37 mins
A disease that was discovered and contained to Central Africa in the 1970s has revived and spread in 2014. Now there is an Ebola outbreak that has moved across borders and science still has no cure for it.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry in our
germ free sealed off recording booth in Atlanta. I assume
this is isolated. Yeah, I don't think it's a biological
(00:25):
safety level four. Then you would you say maybe three?
I don't know. I think we're probably zero. Have you
ever been to the CDC? Now, um, they have you
can go into their lobby. There's like a lobby museum,
a couple of stories with a lot of interacting, interactive
exhibits and um you me and I went and she
tried on one of those biological safety level four suits.
(00:48):
Oh yeah, yeah. I got a very cute picture of
her in one. They probably swallowed her up. Yeah, they
had extra small. I think I have one size. Yeah,
it was just kind of drooping down. But it's a
really neat museum. If you're ever in Atlanta, I strongly
recommend going to the CDC. Yeah I'm gonna wait. Well,
not that I'm paranoid, because we'll talk about how you
(01:09):
can get ebola, but it's still uh, you know, I'll
just I'll just wait. I don't really blame you. Yeah,
I mean those two patients. There are two patients in
Atlanta right now for those of you who have been
under a rock lately, UM, who are being treated for bola,
apparently successfully through a UM at the time, an unapproved
drug um or therapy, i should say. And they're at Emory,
(01:33):
though they're not at the CDC. The CDC is only
dangerous because you know they keep antraks and unlocked refrigerators
and that kind of thing. Yeah, and hey, we want
to thank Jerry for speeding this one through. Uh we
got a lot of requests to do this, obviously because
it's timely, and uh we waited a week and there's
been some new developments and there will be more in
the coming weeks obviously. But um, we're recording this today
(01:56):
and it's coming on on Thursday, and like it's Tuesday,
Today's yeah, so bam, it's dropping, that's right. Um. So
there's people in Atlanta with ebola right now, and those
people came from Liberia. There are a couple of missionaries
and they were flown back to America to be kept
in isolation units in Emery with controversy surrounding that move. Well, yeah,
(02:19):
because if you're a utilitarian philosopher, that was a monstrously
stupid thing to do, to voluntarily bring ebola into the
United States. Yes, and you you there's a good chance
that you will save the lives of two people, but
you also threaten the lives of several hundred million people
who may not have ever otherwise been exposed to the virus.
(02:39):
So I'm not one for like panic and especially not
fomenting panic. Um. But just if you if you understand
utilitarian philosophy, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But we're
compassionate humans, not robots, so utilitarian philosophy doesn't usually go
over that. Well have you seen Contagion? Yeah, I think
(03:00):
we've talked about that on the show. Reading all this
stuff really like, Solderberg kind of nailed it. Yeah, he did.
And uh, I believe in that movie it became airborne though,
which is was it a bowler in the movie? Well, no,
I don't think they was something similar. Yeah, I don't
even think they named it because so they could take
a little bit of fictional license, or maybe they named it,
(03:20):
but I don't think it's a Bola but you know,
started with a fruit bat and you know transferred. We'll
get to all that stuff. Yeah, that one scene where
Gwyneth Paltrow is that fruit bat on her face and
she can't get it off. Very scary movie though, Man
it is Outbreak was pretty good too. I haven't seen
it in many, many years, but I liked it at
the time. It's all right, it was okay, not as
(03:43):
good as Contagion. Dustin Hoffman plays an epidemiologist like no other. Okay,
so let's get down to it. Man, let's talk about
a bull. It's uh, as far as discovery goes, it's
a relatively new player on the deadly virus infects a scene. Yeah,
I guess we should go back to nineteen seventy six. Um.
(04:03):
It's actually named for and I didn't know this, the
Evola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which UM
imagined that river didn't see a lot of traffic anymore
with that name. But it has nothing to do with
the fact that they discovered it in the river or
anything like that. It's just the region. Yeah, and at
the time that country was known as Zaire And even
(04:24):
still there's a strain of Ebola known as zaire type ebola,
and it's the deadliest of all. Yeah. Each of the
five strains are named for the origin country or area.
And uh. In this case, a man named Mabolo Um
sought treatment for a fever in nineteen seventy six. Uh.
They thought it was malaria, which a lot of times
(04:45):
they still mistake it from malaria or other diseases. So
they treated him with a shot of quinine and said,
this should make you feel better. Let me reuse that
needle because of sire and we're underfunded medically speaking. And
uh that of course sprea. And before you know it,
relatives friends after performing burial rituals where they have close
(05:06):
contact with bodily remains and fluids, people started dropping like flies.
It's really scary. There's so and then that was they
think he was patient zero. At the very least, he
was an index patient, which is the patient zero is
like the first person to ever contract it, and an
(05:26):
index person is the first person in an outbreak. I
believe it's possible that Maballo is both. He could be
patient zero and the index patient for that particular outbreak,
but the patient zero for all of ebola. Yeah, and
in this case, in of the three and fifty eight
people died and uh, it's kind of a near simultaneous
(05:48):
outbreak happened in Sudan, and of the two and eighty
four died in Sudan, which is pretty good because it
generally kills about Okay, so that's Sudan type bola. It's
less deadly than Zaire type of bola. Game, yes, but
even still you're talking it's way better than But consider this, chuck,
(06:09):
I looked this up. You know, the influenza um of uh,
the Spanish flu, I think is what it's frequently Back then,
there something like I think twenty million to forty million
people died in one year across the world. Wow. Okay,
(06:29):
the the average life expectancy in the US dropped by
ten years that one year because of that one flu.
It had a mortality rate of only two point five percent.
I bola has a mortality rate of n Well. Yeah,
that's why it's so frightening, because if it became airborne
or aerosol and widespread, it's could eradicate, like the planet,
(06:53):
pretty much of human being. Luckily, it's only been shown
to be able to spread via aerosol, like through the
air among monkeys. That's kind of cold comfort though if
you think about it, because we can get it from monkeys,
and if monkeys can give it to each other like that,
then who that's terrible. That's bad stuff. The reason why
(07:13):
they think a bola has not spread as one because
you can't catch it through the air, but also kind
of chillingly, it kills people too fast for them to
infect that many other people. One of the problems and
you you you've mentioned it in that story about Maballa
patient zero or at least the index patient from ninety six.
(07:34):
UM in Central Africa, there are a lot of burial
customs that require, like you said, the family and friends
of the deceased to wash the body sometimes to clean
the waste and food out of the body, and um
to not use protection or gloves or anything like that.
(07:54):
Like contact with the body is key, right, It's a
part of the ritual burial. And it's still it's like
even during this outbreak now you have like World Health
Organization people going from village to village saying do you
have any dead that we can take away to bury
and they're like, no, no one's died here, and they're
literally hiding the bodies because they don't want they're they're
deceased to not be honored in the way that they
(08:16):
should be based on custom and tradition. The problem is
that this custom and tradition is also simultaneously spreading the
Ebola virus. Yeah, I mean just something like that. If
they could just talk them into at least like wearing
gloves or something like, any little bit would help at
this point. Yeah. So, um, you said there's five types
(08:36):
of ebola. Yeah, I guess we should talk about the
philo virus family, because Ebola is a virus, and it
is a philo virus, which isn't that different from any
kind of kind of virus actually, but it is a
worm like particle that's described as hooked like a shepherd's
crook or a six or you. But you mentioned the
(08:59):
five ferent types and they're named after the region of
their origin, desire and pseudan strains that we talked about,
the Bunda Bugyo, the Thai forest formerly the code Duvoir,
and the rest In type as in rest in Virginia,
which is uh, you might think, yeah, but it's true. Yeah,
(09:20):
there was a shipment of crab eater monkeys that came
out of the Philippines, which is the origin of the
rest and type E bolavirus um. And they were sent
to U LAB, a testing facility in Rest in Virginia,
and um, a bunch of the monkeys started dying. Actually
two shipments I think of monkeys died from this. And
in the second shipment, some of the monkeys infected some
(09:42):
of the humans, and the humans contracted the virus, but
nobody showed symptoms. So we found out that the rest
and virus humans don't respond to. Yeah, it's not deadly
at this point at least, which is great. Um, it's great,
but when less deadly of bolivirus is definitely good. Yeah, seriously. Um.
(10:02):
All of the genetic information though from uh, the bola
is comes from RNA instead of DNA like US humans.
And it's really pretty basic. Compared to US, if we
have three billion base pairs of DNA, they're only about
nineteen thousand number of RNA and a philo virus, which
is uh, you know, it's pretty basic. Yeah, And the
(10:23):
RNA actually is basically like with any virus, it's just
there to say, here's the instructions to replicate me, and uh,
here you go. And they the virus. The Bola virus
spreads like any other virus, where it basically enters the cell.
It injects that RNA, which in turn hijacks the processes
(10:43):
of the cell and turns it from its regular duties
into becoming a replication machine for the virus. And it
turns out all of these UM, all of these different
virus particles viryons I think is what they're called UM,
and those things eventually overwhelmed the cell. And if it's
an enveloped UM virus like a Bola, that means that
(11:07):
the virus can go in and out of the cell
membrane because it's surrounded by like a fat, lipid coating UM.
It can go in and out of the host cell
without destroying the host cell. A naked virus goes in,
injects its stuff, it takes over the host cell, which
makes so many that the host cell just ruptures. And
(11:28):
then that's the way that the the other viruses are released.
With the bowl of virus, it just basically secretes in
a really gross way. But a cell that's been hijacked
secretes new UM BOWLA viruses. Yeah, and it uh, I
mean a lot of this is still a mystery that
we're figuring out, but they do know that it can
infect a lot of different types of cells, but mainly
(11:49):
attacks the immune system and then from there travels to
the lymph nodes and then the spleen and the liver
through the bloodstream, and once it's in those cells, it's
going to release a bunch of nasty chemicals. They think
it's related to the closest to the measles and the
momps actually, which um, all that stuff is helpful and
trying to figure out yours. So they think from what
(12:11):
they understand of the E. Boulavirus, Now, as you contracted
through contact with body fluids and it gets into your
mucous membranes or breaks in the skin, and once there
it shows a preference for immune cells. Like it goes
after talk about an aggressive virus. It goes after the
very cells that are meant to destroy it and it
messes with them. Depending on the type of cell, it'll
(12:33):
either make their function go hey wire, which accounts for
like a huge immune response, or it will shut down
like an immune cells defenses right, So it makes your
immune system go hey wire, but also prevents your immune
system from mounting a defense, which is why you're in
so much trouble if you contract a bowla because it
(12:54):
just goes after your immune system, and then once your
immune system is suppressed, Uh, it goes after other cells
like epithelial cells or endothelial cells, so like connective tissue
cells or um neurological cells, cells that line them the
interior of your blood vessels, which makes your blood vessels
weaken and start to bleed internally. Um. And it then
(13:17):
it like you said, it goes into your liver and
your spleen and just hijacks everything they're ultimately leading to
tissue damage and then organ failure. Yeah, that's how you
will eventually die as multi organ failure in shock. Um.
And you know you mentioned the the antibodies. That's typically
how they test for ebol anaus to looking for the
(13:38):
antibody instead of the virus. But like you mentioned, it
may have suppress the immune system such that they can't
even detect it. And the only test they have are
expensive and they're tough to transport, require machinery, So it's
not the kind of stuff that uh, they're sending over
to Western Central Africa for the most part. Yes, sadly,
(13:59):
so it makes it the fact that it's in um
often very remote locations, that the outbreaks have been kind
of um uh contained. I guess they've been relatively small.
Um I think something like people out of outbreaks since
(14:20):
nine Yes, I have three thousand cases in two thousand
deaths and that's up to the minute, like that it
includes this current outbreak. Yeah, this was like from three
hours ago. So that's I mean, that's if a lot
of people, especially if you live in Central or West Africa.
But if you're looking at the grand scheme of things,
especially for as virulent as this virus is, uh, that's
(14:42):
not that many people. So the fact that it's so
contagious that it's hard to get and that it's hard
to detect makes it very difficult to work on a bola,
work on a vaccine, work on a treatment for it,
that kind of thing. Well, and sadly, like I know
this isn't across the board, but pharmaceutical companies developed drugs
(15:03):
that will make them money. Uh, they're not in it
for curing the world of rare diseases that number in
the hundreds or low thousands. And basically there's it's it's
stuff to admit it, but there's not a market for
these vaccines, a money market, which is a big failure
for humanity. Yeah yeah, Well it takes the threatened life
(15:26):
of two American missionaries to really get the pharmaceutical industry going.
That's exactly what's happened. All right, Well, let's um take
a break here and then we'll talk about some of
the actual symptoms right after this message. Okay, you're gonna
(15:50):
know if you have ebola. Well, actually you won't know
for a little while. It's what's kind of scary, is
it may it may think it's something else, but when
it enters your body, Uh, it's gonna kind of just
sit there silently for two to twenty one days, typically
about four to ten, and then you're gonna start noticing
fever's headache, chill, um joints aching, You're gonna be really tired.
(16:13):
And then that's when you will likely be misdiagnosed, right
with malaria or something else, maybe dingay fever, uh, maybe
yellow fever, but typically malaria is the one that they
go with because the Central and West Africa, so you
know there it's lousy with malaria anyways, and it looks
exactly like malaria. It's after a couple of days of
(16:36):
showing symptoms that it starts to become apparent that possibly
it's a bowla. And the reason why it's because you
take a very sudden, very sharp term for the worse.
After after the first couple of days of showing the
normal flu like symptoms, Yeah, then you're gonna have um,
bloody diarrhea, jaundice, really bad sore throat, you're gonna vomit,
(16:58):
You're not gonna be hungry. And then once you have
symptoms for about five days, about fifty of the victims
will develop rashes on their shoulders and like chest area.
And that's the second stage. There's still yet a third stage.
It's about this time where um, you if you are
going to have a large amounts of bleeding, this is
(17:21):
where it's going to start to happen after several days. UM. Apparently,
in very aggressive cases of ebola, like the Zaire type,
you can die like in six days after symptoms, which
is extraordinarily mind boggling lee fast for something like this, UM.
And the thanks to our friends at the movie Outbreak.
(17:42):
When people think of a bowla, they think of people
like squirting blood out of their eyes. Um, there is
typically some sort of internal bleeding with Ebola. It is
a hemorrhagic fever. After all, about fifty percent of patients
will have this bleeding, mainly in the gastro intestinal tract. So,
but it's not gonna it's not coming out of your
(18:02):
eyes or anything like that. But it is a result
of the Ebola virus going after those endothelial cells, those
cells that UM make up the structure of the blood vessels,
and going after the tissues and the organs and UM
just degrading them. Basically. It's also a part of your
immune response. Like you can have an over inflammation as
a result too. So all this stuff is adding up
(18:23):
to you bleeding internally. And we should say, though, chuck,
like you're not gonna bleed to death. Um, people who
die from a vote bullet typically die as a result
of UM that internal bleeding may lower their blood pressure
and they'll die from hypotensive shock. Yeah. So, I mean
what happens is your your your blood tries to clot
(18:43):
thanks to proteins, and there's so much clotting going on
and so many proteins hard at work, it can't keep
up essentially, and once the tissue damage starts, those proteins
are busy and you're bleeding is uncontrolled at that point, right,
and it's very sad result. Speaking of proteins, ebola makes
a two types of this, one specific protein a glycoprotein,
(19:06):
and one is pretty straightforward. It allows the ebola to
move in and out of a host cell. The second
use of them, the it's called secreted glycoprotein s GP.
That stuff basically goes out and hushes the immune response.
(19:27):
It says, you'd be quiet, be still, and it just
basically goes in shuts down the The antigens is what
they're called, that come after things like ebola and kill them,
and it basically just ties them. It ties them up,
in gags them. Wow, I know. And that it's just crazy. Yeah,
(19:49):
I mean, it's a nasty, nasty virus um. What we
know about it right now is and this is one
of the other scariest parts is that, uh, they are
still not for sure where ebola hangs out for the
years that it lies dormant in the world, because it
doesn't go away. That went away, it wouldn't come back.
It just means it's out there somewhere in a reservoir
(20:12):
and a host. It is a zoonotic disease, so it
occurs naturally in animals, but obviously it's transmitted to humans,
and like I said, it doesn't go away. What they
have to look for and what they've tested and killed
scores of animals doing, is to see if an animal
can survive the virus, because if they can survive the virus,
(20:36):
they are a good candidate to be the host a reservoir. Yeah, exactly. Um,
So they've tested all kinds of animals and what they're
pretty sure of but still not a cent sure of,
is that it is the fruit bat. Yeah, it looks
a lot like the fruit bat. The reason that they've
been having such a hard time finding it is because
from after the six outbreak, Ebola just like went island
(21:00):
until the nineties until there's another outbreak in the nineties,
which is really suspicious as far as epidemiology is concerned,
because that's not supposed to happen. So it made them
think that maybe there was some exotic animal or exotic
plant or something that was acting as the reservoir. Um.
But now they're starting to think more and more that yeah,
it's the common fruit bat. Yeah, because they fruit bats
(21:22):
can have the virus and not get sick. And that
is uh. And they've you know, fruit bats are in
locations where they have the index cases. Yeah, pointing towards
the old fruit bat. Yeah. Plus you can get they've
shown um that ebola can be transmitted through bat guano,
which is bat poop, which is what happened in uh contagion.
(21:45):
Was it bat poop? Yeah, that's scene where um Gwyneth
Paltrow's is eating a bowl of bat poop on a bat.
Spoiler alert, I think it was through a bat through
a pig that eventually found this way to a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah,
The way that movie unfolds at the end, man is
just chilling. Yeah. So, like we said, we know how
it's transmitted, uh event through first human animal contact, then
(22:08):
the infection, and then through you know, bodily fluids and
secretions and uh dirty needles is the biggest culprit though,
and depending on how you get it, uh could affect
the outcome. If you have gotten it through a needle,
you have on chance of dying since nineteen seventy six, Um,
(22:30):
if you've gotten it other uh like through other contact, um,
it can be about eighty percent, So I guess that's
where they come up with the rate. Yeah, I think
the hundred percent rate was for the outbreaks specifically. Yeah,
a hundred percent of people who transmitted it via needle
in that outbreak died. That is insane. Yeah, and uh,
(22:53):
the incubation period is different to three to six days
for a patient if you're stuck with a needle, versus
five to nine for intact exposure. Yeah. So, Chuck, we're
gonna talk about how to prevent the spread of ebola
up next, and what's going on right now with possible cure.
So so, up until recently when we had these patients
(23:22):
shipped over to America, your only chances of contacting ebola's
if you went over to Central or West Africa, um,
which a lot of people do, a lot of people
live there as well. Uh. And they suggest that if
you find yourself over there, you not dwell in forests
or caves because that's where the fruit bats are. Well.
Plus you can contract it from guerrillas and stuff too. Sure,
(23:42):
so you shouldn't eat bush meat, shouldn't touch dead guerrillas,
shouldn't touch dead animals, period, try and limit that contact. Yeah,
that's probably a good idea. And of course, UM, if
you're over there working as a healthcare worker, or if
you're just over there working or living, you should avoid
any kind of reuse needle because that's your guaranteed to
(24:03):
get it. Almost So we mentioned already the burial practices
that are becoming a vector for disease, the spread of
Ebola UM. There's also a couple of other factors that
are coming into account. They the they think that if
the fruit bat is the reservoir for Ebola UM, then
(24:23):
the reason that it's spread because it was always just
in Central Africa before. Now suddenly it's in West Africa.
The March two thousand and fourteen outbreaks started in Guinea UM.
They think that it's because the fruit bats migration patterns
might be shifting because of climate change, so that could
be fostering the spread of ebola. One of the other
(24:44):
problems with this is that UM there's a very widespread
lack of trust for the governments of West African countries
and UM, so there's a lot of misunderstanding, misinformation. There's
very little trust for the World Health authorities. UM, there's
very little trust for the government some of the governments
(25:07):
are using it as political tools like um, yeah, and
I think Sierra Leone they call it East Bowla because
the government in power their main opposition strongholds in the East,
so they're blaming the East on a bullet. It's just
there's a lot of stuff going on over that it's
not helping with this particular outbreak right now. Yeah, that's
really sad. Uh you mentioned about it. Start This the
(25:28):
strain or this outbreak started in Guinea. They think they've
traced traced it back to patient zero, two year old
patient there. It was about eight months ago. Um, they
think that this toddler died. They she suffered from fever
and black stool and vomiting and then died on December
six of last year, even though they don't know how
(25:51):
she got it. And then shortly after her mother died
on December. Then her three year old sister died on
December twenty nine, and then her grandmother died on January one.
And this is all in the village of I know,
I'm probably gonna butcher this, but it's Meliando and Guika
do nice. It's my my best effort there in Guinea. Yeah,
(26:14):
And then that's that's the area is really close to
the Sierra Leone and Liberia borders, which explains a lot.
And then it spread outside their village to people that
attended the grandmother's funeral because of course, again they had
close contact with the body. And then two of those
funeral attendees brought that back to their village. Than healthcare
workers there and family members got sick, and healthcare worker
(26:39):
and Guika do is Uh was suspected to have triggered
the spread to three other villages in February of this year.
And that just shows man again, just like in contagion,
it's just like from person to person, and all of
a sudden it's in places nowhere close to where it started,
and then all of a sudden, it's in places not
(27:00):
super far from where it started. Did you know that there?
Did you hear about the health care bots that caught
the outbreak before the announcement there? There's these bots. I
can't remember the name of the company that runs them,
but they're basically just their job is to just scan
the internet, scan journal articles, scan um news. They're probably
hitting the deep Way, by a guess, and they are
(27:22):
looking for any and all mentions of things, um, that
have to do with outbreaks, I think health care stuff
in general. But nine days before the announcement by the
Guinea authorities, Um, these bots caught this outbreak in that
area nine days. That's pretty impressive stuff. And hopefully we'll
come in in handy further down the road when people
(27:43):
learn to trust that. Yeah, but still, this one's been
the worst yet. And one of the scariest reasons is
because it's happening so fast. Um, the common methods we
have for dealing with it aren't working quick enough. Well,
the common methods we have for dealing with it are
as follows. Like you said, there's no there's no way
to to well, there are, there are ways, there's tests
(28:06):
that show this is a bowla. They're tough to get
to these areas, so it's mostly you know, um, shoe
leather diagnoses I guess um. And then the other aspect
of it is that there's no treatment aside from rehydration,
Like consider that chuck. Like, if you're struck down with
a bowla, guess what treatment they give you? Ivy fluids.
(28:28):
That's it. They isolate you and give you ivy fluids
to try to replenish what you're vomiting out, diary ng
out and um losing in sweat. Yeah, that's the treatment.
Well it was until about five hours ago. Yeah, yeah,
this UM. I wish we had some sort of a
news wire. Jerry knows one. Remember when I went do
(28:52):
Do do and then that she had one accompanying and
and it might not even be out yet. So let's
debut it right now, Chuck. This is fresh off the
wire via CNN. UM. What they have now are an
experimental serum um called z MAP and it's made by
(29:14):
MAP Biopharmaceutical. UM. I'm not sure where they're located, but
there's another another one called Kentucky Bioprocessing, which manufactures another
version of the drug. And they're the ones who are
making this brand new, very experimental drug, and so new,
so experimental that this week the World Health Organization had
(29:36):
to get a group of ethicis together to say, should
we use this stuff? Because the normal testing process is
way way longer than what they've got time wise, so
can we speed this through? Should we use it? The
WHO panel said unanimously, yes, it's ethical. We've got to
(29:57):
do something. I think the u N came on board
just a few hours ago as well, and so they
treated um the two Americans Dr Kent Brantley and Nancy
right bowl they are recovering. But sadly, Miguel Pijaris, the
Spanish priest, died this morning even though he was treated
with the z MAP as well. So it has a
two thirds success rate at this point so far. But
(30:19):
that's the deal with experimental drugs is they don't know
if it's gonna work, or how it's gonna work, or
who it's gonna work on. Um, it's a it's sort
of an ethical quandary because if there's already people saying, well,
you've used it on these Americans, Uh, why haven't you
used it in Liberia? It's sort of a no win
situation this early because if they had died. Uh. And
(30:44):
this is from Paul root Wolp. He's a director for
ethics at Emery here in Atlanta. He said, you know,
if it had killed both these Americans, people wouldn't be
saying anything. But because it worked, they're saying, why isn't
it being used in Africa? He said, But if we
would have taken it to Africa and it killed them,
they would have said Americans are experimenting this drug on
poor Africans. Well, the way they've done it then is
(31:07):
exactly right. They experimented with Americans and then ship the
rest of it to Liberia. The Liberia has the remaining
stock of z MAP right now. There's no more of
it in the US. It's all in Liberia. Yeah, they
applied for it, and they're like you said, they've got
it all and they're already out and uh it takes
a while to make. Well, it's they've figured out some
ways to make it even faster. So what um z
(31:29):
MAP is is called a monoclonal antibody treatment therapy. Basically,
um they they introduce something like ebola into in this case,
a tobacco plant, and they create antibodies. The plant creates
antibodies to the virus, and then they say, okay, these
(31:50):
are the antibodies we need for ebola. Let's synthesize them.
And they make synthetic antibodies, and they take those synthetic anybodies,
the monoclonal anybodies, they inject them into you, the ebola patient,
and these anybodies go in and mimic your body's immune response,
which in turn mounts a real immune response and then
(32:11):
fights off the BOWLA virus. And they only just use
it for a BOWLA. They try this on cancer, on
all sorts of other viruses. So monoclonnell anybody therapy isn't new,
but using it against ebola, the specific one for a
bola is new. And then also using tobacco plants as
the the source of the antibodies, it's fairly new too,
(32:35):
but it makes it so that you can turn it
over a lot faster. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, that is
very cool. Uh, but like we said, it's so new.
I mean they've literally just treated these few patients and um,
one of them died. So, uh, the jury is out.
In the coming days, we're gonna learn a lot more
about z MAP so hopefully it'll save Liberia. Yeah, they've
(32:58):
I never knew this either. An out break is considered
over after there's been forty two days straight, which is
double the incubation period um without any new cases. So um,
everyone's hoping for that forty two day period very soon.
I'm hoping for it. You got anything else? No, did
(33:18):
we ever mentioned Marburg virus? No, that is a cousin
that is also deadly right, it's the other it's the
other Nona bowl of virus and the file of virus family.
It is deadly, but it's extraordinarily rare. It's named after
a German town where there is an outbreak in the
sixties because of some monkeys that were shipped for testing. Wow,
so I guess it's a disease naming convention. Here is
(33:40):
it they? Or everywhere? Is it? Name it after where
it started? Bola Marburg? Yeah? Here? Yeah, there you have it.
That's up to the date. Ebola info. Yes, I don't
have anything else. You don't need to know, but you
know what you guys, if you want to follow this, um,
we should follow up in our video series. You better
(34:04):
believe it that you can find on our YouTube channel. UM.
We use that. We take you in the studio to
kind of follow up on some stories, talk about news
the items, or make corrections. It comes out every Monday. Yeah,
and you can go to see that at I think
it's our YouTube channel, Josh and Chuck. Yeah, so we'll
follow up on this as things develop. Good thinking, Chuck. Uh.
If you want to learn more about the ins and
(34:26):
outs of ebola, you can type people into the search
bar How stuff works dot Com and since I said
search bar, it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna
call this uh guy making a move. Oh yeah, So
Corey Barker wrote us in and says, Hey, I just
want to thank you guys, um, first of all for
all the hard work you do, and also for inspiring
(34:48):
me to make a move in my career. My day
job involves a completely ridiculous amount of driving. You guys
have always been instrumental in keeping me awake. Um. I've
had people tell me on and off for years, you
should do radio, because Corey's got a great voice, he said.
I would always kind of scoff and think how impossible
that would be. But recently I decided that I would
try it out. I invested in some decent studio recording equipment,
(35:09):
made a few audition tapes I guess digital files, and
as of last week, I signed my first audio book contract.
Yeah that's awesome, Like, I'm gonna do this. You can?
Is it that easy? Yeah? Well, I don't know if
it's easy. I think you have to add some talent.
But I think there's plenty of course self published authors
on Amazon, and they're looking for people to make audiobook
(35:31):
versions of their stuff. That's awesome. Well that's what he did,
he said. He said, we deserve a lot of credit,
since if I didn't listen so much to audio while driving,
I would never have decided to take this plunge. Anyway,
I decided I would try to repay a slight amount
of what I've received from you guys by creating an
ad that you could force all the Other Stuff podcast
to play. I think this is a good idea. If
you like it used as much as you want, I
(35:51):
surrender all rights, keep on trucking. You will always have
at least one listener, and that is Corey Barker. Uh
And he said, ps a side to start writing again
as well, thanks to you guys, because your episodes have
spawned some amazing short story ideas. So Corey, let's go
ahead and hear your ad for stuff you should know
right now. Enrich your mind, explore new horizons, and learn
(36:14):
about the world around you. Stuff you should know Tuesdays
and Thursdays on how Stuff Works dot com. Man, how
about that? Thank you, Corey, good voice. I don't blame you.
We're gonna totally oppress the other podcast with this. Yeah,
And I told him to listen out for this, and
he wrote back saying, I'll make sure I have an
extra pair of underwear to change into for when I
(36:36):
get this air awesome, which is really gross stuffing into
your front shirt pocket. Oh my gosh, the clean pair, chuck. Okay.
If you want to get all excited like Corey, you
can share your excitement with us on Twitter at s
y ESK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot
com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
(36:58):
as always, hang out with us at our home on
the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry in our
germ free sealed off recording booth in Atlanta. I assume
this is isolated. Yeah, I don't think it's a biological
(00:25):
safety level four. Then you would you say maybe three?
I don't know. I think we're probably zero. Have you
ever been to the CDC? Now, um, they have you
can go into their lobby. There's like a lobby museum,
a couple of stories with a lot of interacting, interactive
exhibits and um you me and I went and she
tried on one of those biological safety level four suits.
(00:48):
Oh yeah, yeah. I got a very cute picture of
her in one. They probably swallowed her up. Yeah, they
had extra small. I think I have one size. Yeah,
it was just kind of drooping down. But it's a
really neat museum. If you're ever in Atlanta, I strongly
recommend going to the CDC. Yeah I'm gonna wait. Well,
not that I'm paranoid, because we'll talk about how you
(01:09):
can get ebola, but it's still uh, you know, I'll
just I'll just wait. I don't really blame you. Yeah,
I mean those two patients. There are two patients in
Atlanta right now for those of you who have been
under a rock lately, UM, who are being treated for bola,
apparently successfully through a UM at the time, an unapproved
drug um or therapy, i should say. And they're at Emory,
(01:33):
though they're not at the CDC. The CDC is only
dangerous because you know they keep antraks and unlocked refrigerators
and that kind of thing. Yeah, and hey, we want
to thank Jerry for speeding this one through. Uh we
got a lot of requests to do this, obviously because
it's timely, and uh we waited a week and there's
been some new developments and there will be more in
the coming weeks obviously. But um, we're recording this today
(01:56):
and it's coming on on Thursday, and like it's Tuesday,
Today's yeah, so bam, it's dropping, that's right. Um. So
there's people in Atlanta with ebola right now, and those
people came from Liberia. There are a couple of missionaries
and they were flown back to America to be kept
in isolation units in Emery with controversy surrounding that move. Well, yeah,
(02:19):
because if you're a utilitarian philosopher, that was a monstrously
stupid thing to do, to voluntarily bring ebola into the
United States. Yes, and you you there's a good chance
that you will save the lives of two people, but
you also threaten the lives of several hundred million people
who may not have ever otherwise been exposed to the virus.
(02:39):
So I'm not one for like panic and especially not
fomenting panic. Um. But just if you if you understand
utilitarian philosophy, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But we're
compassionate humans, not robots, so utilitarian philosophy doesn't usually go
over that. Well have you seen Contagion? Yeah, I think
(03:00):
we've talked about that on the show. Reading all this
stuff really like, Solderberg kind of nailed it. Yeah, he did.
And uh, I believe in that movie it became airborne though,
which is was it a bowler in the movie? Well, no,
I don't think they was something similar. Yeah, I don't
even think they named it because so they could take
a little bit of fictional license, or maybe they named it,
(03:20):
but I don't think it's a Bola but you know,
started with a fruit bat and you know transferred. We'll
get to all that stuff. Yeah, that one scene where
Gwyneth Paltrow is that fruit bat on her face and
she can't get it off. Very scary movie though, Man
it is Outbreak was pretty good too. I haven't seen
it in many, many years, but I liked it at
the time. It's all right, it was okay, not as
(03:43):
good as Contagion. Dustin Hoffman plays an epidemiologist like no other. Okay,
so let's get down to it. Man, let's talk about
a bull. It's uh, as far as discovery goes, it's
a relatively new player on the deadly virus infects a scene. Yeah,
I guess we should go back to nineteen seventy six. Um.
(04:03):
It's actually named for and I didn't know this, the
Evola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which UM
imagined that river didn't see a lot of traffic anymore
with that name. But it has nothing to do with
the fact that they discovered it in the river or
anything like that. It's just the region. Yeah, and at
the time that country was known as Zaire And even
(04:24):
still there's a strain of Ebola known as zaire type ebola,
and it's the deadliest of all. Yeah. Each of the
five strains are named for the origin country or area.
And uh. In this case, a man named Mabolo Um
sought treatment for a fever in nineteen seventy six. Uh.
They thought it was malaria, which a lot of times
(04:45):
they still mistake it from malaria or other diseases. So
they treated him with a shot of quinine and said,
this should make you feel better. Let me reuse that
needle because of sire and we're underfunded medically speaking. And
uh that of course sprea. And before you know it,
relatives friends after performing burial rituals where they have close
(05:06):
contact with bodily remains and fluids, people started dropping like flies.
It's really scary. There's so and then that was they
think he was patient zero. At the very least, he
was an index patient, which is the patient zero is
like the first person to ever contract it, and an
(05:26):
index person is the first person in an outbreak. I
believe it's possible that Maballo is both. He could be
patient zero and the index patient for that particular outbreak,
but the patient zero for all of ebola. Yeah, and
in this case, in of the three and fifty eight
people died and uh, it's kind of a near simultaneous
(05:48):
outbreak happened in Sudan, and of the two and eighty
four died in Sudan, which is pretty good because it
generally kills about Okay, so that's Sudan type bola. It's
less deadly than Zaire type of bola. Game, yes, but
even still you're talking it's way better than But consider this, chuck,
(06:09):
I looked this up. You know, the influenza um of uh,
the Spanish flu, I think is what it's frequently Back then,
there something like I think twenty million to forty million
people died in one year across the world. Wow. Okay,
(06:29):
the the average life expectancy in the US dropped by
ten years that one year because of that one flu.
It had a mortality rate of only two point five percent.
I bola has a mortality rate of n Well. Yeah,
that's why it's so frightening, because if it became airborne
or aerosol and widespread, it's could eradicate, like the planet,
(06:53):
pretty much of human being. Luckily, it's only been shown
to be able to spread via aerosol, like through the
air among monkeys. That's kind of cold comfort though if
you think about it, because we can get it from monkeys,
and if monkeys can give it to each other like that,
then who that's terrible. That's bad stuff. The reason why
(07:13):
they think a bola has not spread as one because
you can't catch it through the air, but also kind
of chillingly, it kills people too fast for them to
infect that many other people. One of the problems and
you you you've mentioned it in that story about Maballa
patient zero or at least the index patient from ninety six.
(07:34):
UM in Central Africa, there are a lot of burial
customs that require, like you said, the family and friends
of the deceased to wash the body sometimes to clean
the waste and food out of the body, and um
to not use protection or gloves or anything like that.
(07:54):
Like contact with the body is key, right, It's a
part of the ritual burial. And it's still it's like
even during this outbreak now you have like World Health
Organization people going from village to village saying do you
have any dead that we can take away to bury
and they're like, no, no one's died here, and they're
literally hiding the bodies because they don't want they're they're
deceased to not be honored in the way that they
(08:16):
should be based on custom and tradition. The problem is
that this custom and tradition is also simultaneously spreading the
Ebola virus. Yeah, I mean just something like that. If
they could just talk them into at least like wearing
gloves or something like, any little bit would help at
this point. Yeah. So, um, you said there's five types
(08:36):
of ebola. Yeah, I guess we should talk about the
philo virus family, because Ebola is a virus, and it
is a philo virus, which isn't that different from any
kind of kind of virus actually, but it is a
worm like particle that's described as hooked like a shepherd's
crook or a six or you. But you mentioned the
(08:59):
five ferent types and they're named after the region of
their origin, desire and pseudan strains that we talked about,
the Bunda Bugyo, the Thai forest formerly the code Duvoir,
and the rest In type as in rest in Virginia,
which is uh, you might think, yeah, but it's true. Yeah,
(09:20):
there was a shipment of crab eater monkeys that came
out of the Philippines, which is the origin of the
rest and type E bolavirus um. And they were sent
to U LAB, a testing facility in Rest in Virginia,
and um, a bunch of the monkeys started dying. Actually
two shipments I think of monkeys died from this. And
in the second shipment, some of the monkeys infected some
(09:42):
of the humans, and the humans contracted the virus, but
nobody showed symptoms. So we found out that the rest
and virus humans don't respond to. Yeah, it's not deadly
at this point at least, which is great. Um, it's great,
but when less deadly of bolivirus is definitely good. Yeah, seriously. Um.
(10:02):
All of the genetic information though from uh, the bola
is comes from RNA instead of DNA like US humans.
And it's really pretty basic. Compared to US, if we
have three billion base pairs of DNA, they're only about
nineteen thousand number of RNA and a philo virus, which
is uh, you know, it's pretty basic. Yeah, And the
(10:23):
RNA actually is basically like with any virus, it's just
there to say, here's the instructions to replicate me, and uh,
here you go. And they the virus. The Bola virus
spreads like any other virus, where it basically enters the cell.
It injects that RNA, which in turn hijacks the processes
(10:43):
of the cell and turns it from its regular duties
into becoming a replication machine for the virus. And it
turns out all of these UM, all of these different
virus particles viryons I think is what they're called UM,
and those things eventually overwhelmed the cell. And if it's
an enveloped UM virus like a Bola, that means that
(11:07):
the virus can go in and out of the cell
membrane because it's surrounded by like a fat, lipid coating UM.
It can go in and out of the host cell
without destroying the host cell. A naked virus goes in,
injects its stuff, it takes over the host cell, which
makes so many that the host cell just ruptures. And
(11:28):
then that's the way that the the other viruses are released.
With the bowl of virus, it just basically secretes in
a really gross way. But a cell that's been hijacked
secretes new UM BOWLA viruses. Yeah, and it uh, I
mean a lot of this is still a mystery that
we're figuring out, but they do know that it can
infect a lot of different types of cells, but mainly
(11:49):
attacks the immune system and then from there travels to
the lymph nodes and then the spleen and the liver
through the bloodstream, and once it's in those cells, it's
going to release a bunch of nasty chemicals. They think
it's related to the closest to the measles and the
momps actually, which um, all that stuff is helpful and
trying to figure out yours. So they think from what
(12:11):
they understand of the E. Boulavirus, Now, as you contracted
through contact with body fluids and it gets into your
mucous membranes or breaks in the skin, and once there
it shows a preference for immune cells. Like it goes
after talk about an aggressive virus. It goes after the
very cells that are meant to destroy it and it
messes with them. Depending on the type of cell, it'll
(12:33):
either make their function go hey wire, which accounts for
like a huge immune response, or it will shut down
like an immune cells defenses right, So it makes your
immune system go hey wire, but also prevents your immune
system from mounting a defense, which is why you're in
so much trouble if you contract a bowla because it
(12:54):
just goes after your immune system, and then once your
immune system is suppressed, Uh, it goes after other cells
like epithelial cells or endothelial cells, so like connective tissue
cells or um neurological cells, cells that line them the
interior of your blood vessels, which makes your blood vessels
weaken and start to bleed internally. Um. And it then
(13:17):
it like you said, it goes into your liver and
your spleen and just hijacks everything they're ultimately leading to
tissue damage and then organ failure. Yeah, that's how you
will eventually die as multi organ failure in shock. Um.
And you know you mentioned the the antibodies. That's typically
how they test for ebol anaus to looking for the
(13:38):
antibody instead of the virus. But like you mentioned, it
may have suppress the immune system such that they can't
even detect it. And the only test they have are
expensive and they're tough to transport, require machinery, So it's
not the kind of stuff that uh, they're sending over
to Western Central Africa for the most part. Yes, sadly,
(13:59):
so it makes it the fact that it's in um
often very remote locations, that the outbreaks have been kind
of um uh contained. I guess they've been relatively small.
Um I think something like people out of outbreaks since
(14:20):
nine Yes, I have three thousand cases in two thousand
deaths and that's up to the minute, like that it
includes this current outbreak. Yeah, this was like from three
hours ago. So that's I mean, that's if a lot
of people, especially if you live in Central or West Africa.
But if you're looking at the grand scheme of things,
especially for as virulent as this virus is, uh, that's
(14:42):
not that many people. So the fact that it's so
contagious that it's hard to get and that it's hard
to detect makes it very difficult to work on a bola,
work on a vaccine, work on a treatment for it,
that kind of thing. Well, and sadly, like I know
this isn't across the board, but pharmaceutical companies developed drugs
(15:03):
that will make them money. Uh, they're not in it
for curing the world of rare diseases that number in
the hundreds or low thousands. And basically there's it's it's
stuff to admit it, but there's not a market for
these vaccines, a money market, which is a big failure
for humanity. Yeah yeah, Well it takes the threatened life
(15:26):
of two American missionaries to really get the pharmaceutical industry going.
That's exactly what's happened. All right, Well, let's um take
a break here and then we'll talk about some of
the actual symptoms right after this message. Okay, you're gonna
(15:50):
know if you have ebola. Well, actually you won't know
for a little while. It's what's kind of scary, is
it may it may think it's something else, but when
it enters your body, Uh, it's gonna kind of just
sit there silently for two to twenty one days, typically
about four to ten, and then you're gonna start noticing
fever's headache, chill, um joints aching, You're gonna be really tired.
(16:13):
And then that's when you will likely be misdiagnosed, right
with malaria or something else, maybe dingay fever, uh, maybe
yellow fever, but typically malaria is the one that they
go with because the Central and West Africa, so you
know there it's lousy with malaria anyways, and it looks
exactly like malaria. It's after a couple of days of
(16:36):
showing symptoms that it starts to become apparent that possibly
it's a bowla. And the reason why it's because you
take a very sudden, very sharp term for the worse.
After after the first couple of days of showing the
normal flu like symptoms, Yeah, then you're gonna have um,
bloody diarrhea, jaundice, really bad sore throat, you're gonna vomit,
(16:58):
You're not gonna be hungry. And then once you have
symptoms for about five days, about fifty of the victims
will develop rashes on their shoulders and like chest area.
And that's the second stage. There's still yet a third stage.
It's about this time where um, you if you are
going to have a large amounts of bleeding, this is
(17:21):
where it's going to start to happen after several days. UM. Apparently,
in very aggressive cases of ebola, like the Zaire type,
you can die like in six days after symptoms, which
is extraordinarily mind boggling lee fast for something like this, UM.
And the thanks to our friends at the movie Outbreak.
(17:42):
When people think of a bowla, they think of people
like squirting blood out of their eyes. Um, there is
typically some sort of internal bleeding with Ebola. It is
a hemorrhagic fever. After all, about fifty percent of patients
will have this bleeding, mainly in the gastro intestinal tract. So,
but it's not gonna it's not coming out of your
(18:02):
eyes or anything like that. But it is a result
of the Ebola virus going after those endothelial cells, those
cells that UM make up the structure of the blood vessels,
and going after the tissues and the organs and UM
just degrading them. Basically. It's also a part of your
immune response. Like you can have an over inflammation as
a result too. So all this stuff is adding up
(18:23):
to you bleeding internally. And we should say, though, chuck,
like you're not gonna bleed to death. Um, people who
die from a vote bullet typically die as a result
of UM that internal bleeding may lower their blood pressure
and they'll die from hypotensive shock. Yeah. So, I mean
what happens is your your your blood tries to clot
(18:43):
thanks to proteins, and there's so much clotting going on
and so many proteins hard at work, it can't keep
up essentially, and once the tissue damage starts, those proteins
are busy and you're bleeding is uncontrolled at that point, right,
and it's very sad result. Speaking of proteins, ebola makes
a two types of this, one specific protein a glycoprotein,
(19:06):
and one is pretty straightforward. It allows the ebola to
move in and out of a host cell. The second
use of them, the it's called secreted glycoprotein s GP.
That stuff basically goes out and hushes the immune response.
(19:27):
It says, you'd be quiet, be still, and it just
basically goes in shuts down the The antigens is what
they're called, that come after things like ebola and kill them,
and it basically just ties them. It ties them up,
in gags them. Wow, I know. And that it's just crazy. Yeah,
(19:49):
I mean, it's a nasty, nasty virus um. What we
know about it right now is and this is one
of the other scariest parts is that, uh, they are
still not for sure where ebola hangs out for the
years that it lies dormant in the world, because it
doesn't go away. That went away, it wouldn't come back.
It just means it's out there somewhere in a reservoir
(20:12):
and a host. It is a zoonotic disease, so it
occurs naturally in animals, but obviously it's transmitted to humans,
and like I said, it doesn't go away. What they
have to look for and what they've tested and killed
scores of animals doing, is to see if an animal
can survive the virus, because if they can survive the virus,
(20:36):
they are a good candidate to be the host a reservoir. Yeah, exactly. Um,
So they've tested all kinds of animals and what they're
pretty sure of but still not a cent sure of,
is that it is the fruit bat. Yeah, it looks
a lot like the fruit bat. The reason that they've
been having such a hard time finding it is because
from after the six outbreak, Ebola just like went island
(21:00):
until the nineties until there's another outbreak in the nineties,
which is really suspicious as far as epidemiology is concerned,
because that's not supposed to happen. So it made them
think that maybe there was some exotic animal or exotic
plant or something that was acting as the reservoir. Um.
But now they're starting to think more and more that yeah,
it's the common fruit bat. Yeah, because they fruit bats
(21:22):
can have the virus and not get sick. And that
is uh. And they've you know, fruit bats are in
locations where they have the index cases. Yeah, pointing towards
the old fruit bat. Yeah. Plus you can get they've
shown um that ebola can be transmitted through bat guano,
which is bat poop, which is what happened in uh contagion.
(21:45):
Was it bat poop? Yeah, that's scene where um Gwyneth
Paltrow's is eating a bowl of bat poop on a bat.
Spoiler alert, I think it was through a bat through
a pig that eventually found this way to a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah,
The way that movie unfolds at the end, man is
just chilling. Yeah. So, like we said, we know how
it's transmitted, uh event through first human animal contact, then
(22:08):
the infection, and then through you know, bodily fluids and
secretions and uh dirty needles is the biggest culprit though,
and depending on how you get it, uh could affect
the outcome. If you have gotten it through a needle,
you have on chance of dying since nineteen seventy six, Um,
(22:30):
if you've gotten it other uh like through other contact, um,
it can be about eighty percent, So I guess that's
where they come up with the rate. Yeah, I think
the hundred percent rate was for the outbreaks specifically. Yeah,
a hundred percent of people who transmitted it via needle
in that outbreak died. That is insane. Yeah, and uh,
(22:53):
the incubation period is different to three to six days
for a patient if you're stuck with a needle, versus
five to nine for intact exposure. Yeah. So, Chuck, we're
gonna talk about how to prevent the spread of ebola
up next, and what's going on right now with possible cure.
So so, up until recently when we had these patients
(23:22):
shipped over to America, your only chances of contacting ebola's
if you went over to Central or West Africa, um,
which a lot of people do, a lot of people
live there as well. Uh. And they suggest that if
you find yourself over there, you not dwell in forests
or caves because that's where the fruit bats are. Well.
Plus you can contract it from guerrillas and stuff too. Sure,
(23:42):
so you shouldn't eat bush meat, shouldn't touch dead guerrillas,
shouldn't touch dead animals, period, try and limit that contact. Yeah,
that's probably a good idea. And of course, UM, if
you're over there working as a healthcare worker, or if
you're just over there working or living, you should avoid
any kind of reuse needle because that's your guaranteed to
(24:03):
get it. Almost So we mentioned already the burial practices
that are becoming a vector for disease, the spread of
Ebola UM. There's also a couple of other factors that
are coming into account. They the they think that if
the fruit bat is the reservoir for Ebola UM, then
(24:23):
the reason that it's spread because it was always just
in Central Africa before. Now suddenly it's in West Africa.
The March two thousand and fourteen outbreaks started in Guinea UM.
They think that it's because the fruit bats migration patterns
might be shifting because of climate change, so that could
be fostering the spread of ebola. One of the other
(24:44):
problems with this is that UM there's a very widespread
lack of trust for the governments of West African countries
and UM, so there's a lot of misunderstanding, misinformation. There's
very little trust for the World Health authorities. UM, there's
very little trust for the government some of the governments
(25:07):
are using it as political tools like um, yeah, and
I think Sierra Leone they call it East Bowla because
the government in power their main opposition strongholds in the East,
so they're blaming the East on a bullet. It's just
there's a lot of stuff going on over that it's
not helping with this particular outbreak right now. Yeah, that's
really sad. Uh you mentioned about it. Start This the
(25:28):
strain or this outbreak started in Guinea. They think they've
traced traced it back to patient zero, two year old
patient there. It was about eight months ago. Um, they
think that this toddler died. They she suffered from fever
and black stool and vomiting and then died on December
six of last year, even though they don't know how
(25:51):
she got it. And then shortly after her mother died
on December. Then her three year old sister died on
December twenty nine, and then her grandmother died on January one.
And this is all in the village of I know,
I'm probably gonna butcher this, but it's Meliando and Guika
do nice. It's my my best effort there in Guinea. Yeah,
(26:14):
And then that's that's the area is really close to
the Sierra Leone and Liberia borders, which explains a lot.
And then it spread outside their village to people that
attended the grandmother's funeral because of course, again they had
close contact with the body. And then two of those
funeral attendees brought that back to their village. Than healthcare
workers there and family members got sick, and healthcare worker
(26:39):
and Guika do is Uh was suspected to have triggered
the spread to three other villages in February of this year.
And that just shows man again, just like in contagion,
it's just like from person to person, and all of
a sudden it's in places nowhere close to where it started,
and then all of a sudden, it's in places not
(27:00):
super far from where it started. Did you know that there?
Did you hear about the health care bots that caught
the outbreak before the announcement there? There's these bots. I
can't remember the name of the company that runs them,
but they're basically just their job is to just scan
the internet, scan journal articles, scan um news. They're probably
hitting the deep Way, by a guess, and they are
(27:22):
looking for any and all mentions of things, um, that
have to do with outbreaks, I think health care stuff
in general. But nine days before the announcement by the
Guinea authorities, Um, these bots caught this outbreak in that
area nine days. That's pretty impressive stuff. And hopefully we'll
come in in handy further down the road when people
(27:43):
learn to trust that. Yeah, but still, this one's been
the worst yet. And one of the scariest reasons is
because it's happening so fast. Um, the common methods we
have for dealing with it aren't working quick enough. Well,
the common methods we have for dealing with it are
as follows. Like you said, there's no there's no way
to to well, there are, there are ways, there's tests
(28:06):
that show this is a bowla. They're tough to get
to these areas, so it's mostly you know, um, shoe
leather diagnoses I guess um. And then the other aspect
of it is that there's no treatment aside from rehydration,
Like consider that chuck. Like, if you're struck down with
a bowla, guess what treatment they give you? Ivy fluids.
(28:28):
That's it. They isolate you and give you ivy fluids
to try to replenish what you're vomiting out, diary ng
out and um losing in sweat. Yeah, that's the treatment.
Well it was until about five hours ago. Yeah, yeah,
this UM. I wish we had some sort of a
news wire. Jerry knows one. Remember when I went do
(28:52):
Do do and then that she had one accompanying and
and it might not even be out yet. So let's
debut it right now, Chuck. This is fresh off the
wire via CNN. UM. What they have now are an
experimental serum um called z MAP and it's made by
(29:14):
MAP Biopharmaceutical. UM. I'm not sure where they're located, but
there's another another one called Kentucky Bioprocessing, which manufactures another
version of the drug. And they're the ones who are
making this brand new, very experimental drug, and so new,
so experimental that this week the World Health Organization had
(29:36):
to get a group of ethicis together to say, should
we use this stuff? Because the normal testing process is
way way longer than what they've got time wise, so
can we speed this through? Should we use it? The
WHO panel said unanimously, yes, it's ethical. We've got to
(29:57):
do something. I think the u N came on board
just a few hours ago as well, and so they
treated um the two Americans Dr Kent Brantley and Nancy
right bowl they are recovering. But sadly, Miguel Pijaris, the
Spanish priest, died this morning even though he was treated
with the z MAP as well. So it has a
two thirds success rate at this point so far. But
(30:19):
that's the deal with experimental drugs is they don't know
if it's gonna work, or how it's gonna work, or
who it's gonna work on. Um, it's a it's sort
of an ethical quandary because if there's already people saying, well,
you've used it on these Americans, Uh, why haven't you
used it in Liberia? It's sort of a no win
situation this early because if they had died. Uh. And
(30:44):
this is from Paul root Wolp. He's a director for
ethics at Emery here in Atlanta. He said, you know,
if it had killed both these Americans, people wouldn't be
saying anything. But because it worked, they're saying, why isn't
it being used in Africa? He said, But if we
would have taken it to Africa and it killed them,
they would have said Americans are experimenting this drug on
poor Africans. Well, the way they've done it then is
(31:07):
exactly right. They experimented with Americans and then ship the
rest of it to Liberia. The Liberia has the remaining
stock of z MAP right now. There's no more of
it in the US. It's all in Liberia. Yeah, they
applied for it, and they're like you said, they've got
it all and they're already out and uh it takes
a while to make. Well, it's they've figured out some
ways to make it even faster. So what um z
(31:29):
MAP is is called a monoclonal antibody treatment therapy. Basically,
um they they introduce something like ebola into in this case,
a tobacco plant, and they create antibodies. The plant creates
antibodies to the virus, and then they say, okay, these
(31:50):
are the antibodies we need for ebola. Let's synthesize them.
And they make synthetic antibodies, and they take those synthetic anybodies,
the monoclonal anybodies, they inject them into you, the ebola patient,
and these anybodies go in and mimic your body's immune response,
which in turn mounts a real immune response and then
(32:11):
fights off the BOWLA virus. And they only just use
it for a BOWLA. They try this on cancer, on
all sorts of other viruses. So monoclonnell anybody therapy isn't new,
but using it against ebola, the specific one for a
bola is new. And then also using tobacco plants as
the the source of the antibodies, it's fairly new too,
(32:35):
but it makes it so that you can turn it
over a lot faster. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, that is
very cool. Uh, but like we said, it's so new.
I mean they've literally just treated these few patients and um,
one of them died. So, uh, the jury is out.
In the coming days, we're gonna learn a lot more
about z MAP so hopefully it'll save Liberia. Yeah, they've
(32:58):
I never knew this either. An out break is considered
over after there's been forty two days straight, which is
double the incubation period um without any new cases. So um,
everyone's hoping for that forty two day period very soon.
I'm hoping for it. You got anything else? No, did
(33:18):
we ever mentioned Marburg virus? No, that is a cousin
that is also deadly right, it's the other it's the
other Nona bowl of virus and the file of virus family.
It is deadly, but it's extraordinarily rare. It's named after
a German town where there is an outbreak in the
sixties because of some monkeys that were shipped for testing. Wow,
so I guess it's a disease naming convention. Here is
(33:40):
it they? Or everywhere? Is it? Name it after where
it started? Bola Marburg? Yeah? Here? Yeah, there you have it.
That's up to the date. Ebola info. Yes, I don't
have anything else. You don't need to know, but you
know what you guys, if you want to follow this, um,
we should follow up in our video series. You better
(34:04):
believe it that you can find on our YouTube channel. UM.
We use that. We take you in the studio to
kind of follow up on some stories, talk about news
the items, or make corrections. It comes out every Monday. Yeah,
and you can go to see that at I think
it's our YouTube channel, Josh and Chuck. Yeah, so we'll
follow up on this as things develop. Good thinking, Chuck. Uh.
If you want to learn more about the ins and
(34:26):
outs of ebola, you can type people into the search
bar How stuff works dot Com and since I said
search bar, it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna
call this uh guy making a move. Oh yeah, So
Corey Barker wrote us in and says, Hey, I just
want to thank you guys, um, first of all for
all the hard work you do, and also for inspiring
(34:48):
me to make a move in my career. My day
job involves a completely ridiculous amount of driving. You guys
have always been instrumental in keeping me awake. Um. I've
had people tell me on and off for years, you
should do radio, because Corey's got a great voice, he said.
I would always kind of scoff and think how impossible
that would be. But recently I decided that I would
try it out. I invested in some decent studio recording equipment,
(35:09):
made a few audition tapes I guess digital files, and
as of last week, I signed my first audio book contract.
Yeah that's awesome, Like, I'm gonna do this. You can?
Is it that easy? Yeah? Well, I don't know if
it's easy. I think you have to add some talent.
But I think there's plenty of course self published authors
on Amazon, and they're looking for people to make audiobook
(35:31):
versions of their stuff. That's awesome. Well that's what he did,
he said. He said, we deserve a lot of credit,
since if I didn't listen so much to audio while driving,
I would never have decided to take this plunge. Anyway,
I decided I would try to repay a slight amount
of what I've received from you guys by creating an
ad that you could force all the Other Stuff podcast
to play. I think this is a good idea. If
you like it used as much as you want, I
(35:51):
surrender all rights, keep on trucking. You will always have
at least one listener, and that is Corey Barker. Uh
And he said, ps a side to start writing again
as well, thanks to you guys, because your episodes have
spawned some amazing short story ideas. So Corey, let's go
ahead and hear your ad for stuff you should know
right now. Enrich your mind, explore new horizons, and learn
(36:14):
about the world around you. Stuff you should know Tuesdays
and Thursdays on how Stuff Works dot com. Man, how
about that? Thank you, Corey, good voice. I don't blame you.
We're gonna totally oppress the other podcast with this. Yeah,
And I told him to listen out for this, and
he wrote back saying, I'll make sure I have an
extra pair of underwear to change into for when I
(36:36):
get this air awesome, which is really gross stuffing into
your front shirt pocket. Oh my gosh, the clean pair, chuck. Okay.
If you want to get all excited like Corey, you
can share your excitement with us on Twitter at s
y ESK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot
com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
(36:58):
as always, hang out with us at our home on
the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Stuff Works dot com
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.