Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2014 8:48:39 GMT -8
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Post by obiwankenobi55555 on Oct 21, 2014 9:07:08 GMT -8
I was expecting theme like this in incomming weeks. I read this text before few days and I think the same. I'm also waiting to see other comments.
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Post by cabintom on Oct 21, 2014 9:55:50 GMT -8
I'm incredibly skeptical about insects being able to carry the ebola virus. From what I understand, it is passed from mammal to mammal, and that fruit bats are likely the most dangerous carrier of the virus. What I assume to be happening is that infected fruit bats are either being eaten (in D.R. Congo people will eat bats... they seem to eat most things that move) or the bats are coming in contact with fruit in trees that then drops to the ground and is subsequently eaten by people (or) is eaten by other animals which become infected and are then eaten by people. I read an interesting Q & A with an entomologist regarding mosquitoes found here: io9.com/ask-an-entomologist-anything-you-want-about-mosquitoes-1646596878Here a relevant question and answer: Q: "I've been told that you cannot get Ebola and AIDS and a few other scary things from mosquito bites. I don't see how that could be. I think the odds are against it, that you are better off spending your time avoiding used needles and being careful of contact with people, but is there really any reason you could not catch something like that from a mosquito bite? That seems to be their whole thing, biting people with infected blood and then spreading it to other people. Why not not these two particular things?"
A: "Great question. There are three theoretical ways that one can get a disease from a mosquito: 1. Injected by the mosquito during feeding. 2— Infected with contaminated mouthparts. 3 — Squashing a contaminated mosquito onto your skin.
For 1 — it requires specialized biological relationship for the pathogen to survive the digestive juice of the mosquito, invade the blood stream, invade salivary tissues and replicate. Ebola, AIDS, and most other diseases do not have the appropriate biology to do this.
For 2 — Every pathogen has a minimum number of infectious units that must be presented in order for the disease to develop faster than the immune response. Mosquito stylets are very small and, even after feeding on an infected host, contain far too few virions to cause infection. It has been calculated that, to get AIDS from contaminated mosquitoes, would require more than 1,000,000 mosquito bites — the patient would die of blood loss before the pathogen could get going. Same is true for Ebola.
For 3 — Similar argument here although the risk from contaminated blood on your skin would be greater with Ebola. However, if someone were close enough to an Ebola victim to receive a large number of this type of effect, contamination from other things would be a bigger problem."
So in terms of other insects (like beetles) I'd say it's highly doubtful they'd be able to carry the disease. First is the question of how they'd contract it, second is the question of how the virus would adapt to live in that new host (since it seems to be solely adapted to mammals), third is the question on how a person would then contract the disease from the insect. Also, it should be pointed out that HIV/AIDS is FAR FAR FAR more widespread, orders of magnitude more people are infected by it and die from it each year than ebola (by the way, ebola is not new), and no one is worried about catching HIV/AIDS through contact with insects. Now, I'm not an expert on the subject, so this is all just a reflection of my opinion, but I've lived in a country (DRC) that has had several Ebola outbreaks (including one this year that is being overshadowed by the outbreak in West Africa), and I'm not worried about the virus, so I don't think you should be worried about purchasing beetles from West Africa... ... ... unless the supplier was ill at the time and sneezed on the specimens before packaging.  |
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Post by Adam Cotton on Oct 21, 2014 10:03:28 GMT -8
Beetles from any country other than Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia will be perfectly safe. If you are not sure, just spray the whole parcel with 95% alcohol as you open it, and then drop the beetles into an alcohol bath using forceps, and sterilise the forceps as well.
In reality though, the person who handled the beetles would actually have to be sick with Ebola to be infectious, and he would have to spit/pee/puke/bleed on them for any virus to get onto the beetles. I just can't see there is any real risk.
The article just said that scientists speculate that insects COULD carry the virus (without any proof), and they are clearly talking about live insects. Personally I find it very doubtful, and if there was any real evidence it would be published by now. Note that this article was actually written in 2003, so considerable time has passed. Almost certainly Ebola is hosted by bats, as the Asian Ebola (luckily harmless to humans) has been found in bats in Sumatra and the Philippines.
Adam.
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Post by wollastoni on Oct 21, 2014 10:49:26 GMT -8
I would add that the flue kills everyyear 100 000 westerners and Ebola has killed 2 of them...
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Post by timmsyrj on Oct 21, 2014 12:54:07 GMT -8
Quite right Olivier, we've not had a virus scare for a while, swine flu and bird flu seem to be a thing of the past so let's start another panic when someone dies coming from a third world country.
Rich
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rjb
Full Member
Posts: 187
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Post by rjb on Oct 21, 2014 17:03:38 GMT -8
I was under the impression that ebola virus cannot survive dehydration for long, a couple hours at room temperature, maybe a lot longer in a freezer. That is why transmission involves exchange of contaminated fluids. So live insects can transmit ebola, but dead dried insect purchased from west africa should be absolutely no problem.
Rick
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Post by crazypapilio on Oct 24, 2014 11:02:13 GMT -8
are other diseases known from dried tropic insects?
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Post by lordpandarus on Oct 25, 2014 2:16:49 GMT -8
It depends if customs officials decide to be stupid and make up their own rules, due to the worldwide panic the virus is causing right now
I got a butterfly from West Africa recently (but captured a while ago and shipped from Europe) but was still worried if the parcel got inspected and they read the data they might confiscate it (or worse)
But I agree it's probably impossible dried insects can be contaminated with a virus (any virus). If that was the case trade would probably already be restricted a long time ago
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Post by Chris Grinter on Oct 28, 2014 10:18:27 GMT -8
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