Ebola

[Petrushka]

Forgive me for being naïve but wouldn't it be a good idea to ban flights to and from West Africa for the duration? I would have thought the best way to contain this disease is to isolate it but officialdom seems not to be handling this one well at all.

Ebola is a contact infection and is not an airborne infection, and as such should surely be easier to contain.

Loads of info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28940025

[Serial_Apologist]

Forgive me for being naïve but wouldn't it be a good idea to ban flights to and from West Africa for the duration?

The logic consisting in that any infected refugees by means other than aircraft flight are likely to succumb before reaching whatever may be their target destinations.

It strikes me that if 45% of sufferers are managing to survive, harsh though the reality, it affords the possibility of surviving communities that have immunity to infection.

[Risorgimento]

Rather than rehash an excellent article, this is worth reading http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamar.../ebola-travel/ and explains why it wouldn't work.

[Serial_Apologist]

Rather than rehash an excellent article, this is worth reading http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamar.../ebola-travel/ and explains why it wouldn't work.

Not banning air travel from the countries concerned unfortunately won't stop those other means of travel referred to in the article, which will be resorted to by those unable to fly, for whatever reason. It also turns out, again unfortunately, that the assumption I had made in Msg 2 of immunity for one-time sufferers may well be wrong. This was revealed in a news item this lunchtime about the possible return to Sierra Leone of the recovered British doctor.

[MrGongGong]

This seems to be a classic (and tragic) example of how "the market" isn't a universally good thing.
There is no money to be made in making drugs for people in poor countries.
Sadly, the best hope the folks of West Africa have is Ebola cases in the USA

[Risorgimento]

This seems to be a classic (and tragic) example of how "the market" isn't a universally good thing.
There is no money to be made in making drugs for people in poor countries.
Sadly, the best hope the folks of West Africa have is Ebola cases in the USA

This has to be the daftest post of the year. You show a pitifully weak understanding and knowledge of basic economics and the drug industry. Stop jumping on your hobbyhorse at every single opportunity, will you? Give us all a break.

[MrGongGong]

This has to be the daftest post of the year. You show a pitifully weak understanding and knowledge of basic economics and the drug industry. Stop jumping on your hobbyhorse at every single opportunity, will you? Give us all a break.

The "basic economics" seem to me (and many others) to be along the lines of
There's lots of money to be made in making duplicate drugs for the disieses that afflict the wealthiest nations
and not so much for those that afflict the poor.

What's "daft" about saying that ?

Or is it part of the multicultural lizard conspiracy ?

[Risorgimento]

The "basic economics" seem to me (and many others) to be along the lines of
There's lots of money to be made in making duplicate drugs for the disieses that afflict the wealthiest nations
and not so much for those that afflict the poor.

What's "daft" about saying that ?

Or is it part of the multicultural lizard conspiracy ?

It's called the market economy and affects us here in the West just as it affects other countries in the Third World. Take research into new antibiotics. Companies are not going to invest in research for the next generation antibiotics to kill bacteria that is resistant to current antibiotics as the number of cases and hence requirement for the new antibiotic is very very low (at the moment). So less of the "poor countries"

[MrGongGong]

It's called the market economy and affects us here in the West just as it affects other countries in the Third World. Take research into new antibiotics. Companies are not going to invest in research for the next generation antibiotics to kill bacteria that is resistant to current antibiotics as the number of cases and hence requirement for the new antibiotic is very very low (at the moment). So less of the "poor countries"

Exactly
So the "market economy" doesn't really serve the health of people very well at all.
I think if you lived in a country that didn't have safe drinking water (for example) the stakes would be much much higher.

There are other ways of doing these things.

[ahinton]

It's called the market economy and affects us here in the West just as it affects other countries in the Third World. Take research into new antibiotics. Companies are not going to invest in research for the next generation antibiotics to kill bacteria that is resistant to current antibiotics as the number of cases and hence requirement for the new antibiotic is very very low (at the moment). So less of the "poor countries"

I'm sorry but I don't think that you're right about this. All pharmaceutical companies invest vast amounts in R&D for each drug and, in order to survive and reap the benefit of those investments, they have to sell what they then manufacture, so it seems pretty obvious to me that they're not going to invest such sums in R&D, marketing and distribution of drugs that are mainly required only by poor countries that can usually ill afford them. Whilst I am not for one moment suggesting that pharmaceutical companies never make profits from their activities tht might be deemed unreasonable, the cap nevertheless fits.

[MrGongGong]

I'm sorry but I don't think that you're right about this. All pharmaceutical companies invest vast amounts in R&D for each drug and, in order to survive and reap the benefit of those investments, they have to sell what they then manufacture, so it seems pretty obvious to me that they're not going to invest such sums in R&D, marketing and distribution of drugs that are mainly required only by poor countries that can usually ill afford them. Whilst I am not for one moment suggesting that pharmaceutical companies never make profits from their activities tht might be deemed unreasonable, the cap nevertheless fits.

Exactly
My only point (whether some folks think it's "daft" or not) was that treating everything as a business isn't always a good idea.

[Risorgimento]

. I refuse to be trolled by cretinous fuckwits

There is zero moderation on this board.

Goodbye.

[ahinton]

Exactly
So the "market economy" doesn't really serve the health of people very well at all.
I think if you lived in a country that didn't have safe drinking water (for example) the stakes would be much much higher.

There are other ways of doing these things.

It may serve some people well enough but not those in poor countries, as you suggest above. How many poor countries have their own pharmaceutical companies, for starters? Most if not all have to purchase (or not) the drugs that they need from far richer nations' pharmaceutical companies. It would seem that the only hope in the poor countries where this particular problem has originated and to which - albeit only for the time being - it is almost entirely confined is that richer countries' pharmaceutical companies be persuaded by those countries' governments of the risk that this disease might spread to those countries and, if it does, their citizens will expect efforts to have been made to develop a vaccine by the time that it does so.

[Risorgimento]

. I refuse to be trolled by cretinous fuckwits

There is zero moderation on this board.

Goodbye.

[MrGongGong]

Unlike MrGG who seems to think that only poor countries are affected, .

I don't