Scientist injects self w/ Ebola

So, shouldn't they have waited to make sure she had it. :shrug:


BERLIN - It's a nightmare scenario worthy of a sci-fi movie script: A scientist accidentally pricks her finger with a needle used to inject the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice.

But in this case, it really happened — to an unidentified 45-year-old woman in Germany.

Within hours of the accident on March 12, several of the scientist's colleagues held a trans-Atlantic telephone conference to map out a way to save her life.

Within 24 hours, an experimental vaccine — never before tried on humans — was on its way to Germany from a lab in Canada.

Within 40 hours, the at-risk scientist was injected with the vaccine.

So far, so good. If the woman is still healthy on April 2, she can consider herself safe.

It's not a 100-percent certainty the researcher was actually infected with Ebola.

If she doesn't become infected, scientists may not know if it was the vaccine, or luck.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Scary stuff. Perhaps it'll be a lesson to not become complacent and relaxed with routine procedures when dealing with a deadly substance.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

"It should be emphasized that HCP are not at an extremely high degree of risk of acquiring HIV from their patients.

The risk varies depending on the type of exposure. A percutaneous injury refers to an injury resulting from a needle prick, or a cut with a sharp object. The risk after percutaneous exposure is estimated to be about 0.3% i.e. 3 out of a thousand needle pricks may result in HIV infection.

The risk after a mucous membrane exposure is estimated to be lower; about 0.09%. This includes contact with the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose and mouth, or contact with chapped, abraded or inflamed skin.

Any kind of direct contact with concentrated HIV in a laboratory is also considered risky.

Contact of HIV-infected blood with intact skin for a prolonged period, or over an extensive area of the skin, may carry a risk, although isolated skin exposure for a short period probably does not pose a risk.

Till June 2000, 56 documented cases and 138 possible cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA. Of the documented episodes, the majority of HCP were percutaneously exposed to HIV-infected blood. The percutaneous exposures most frequently involved hollow-bore and solid needlestick injuries; a few involved other sharp objects.

Most reported occupationally acquired infections have occurred in nurses and laboratory workers. Percutaneous and other exposure are also common during surgical procedures. Factors posing a risk to the surgeon are the length of the procedure, the volume of blood loss, and whether the operation involves major vascular or intraabdominal/gynaecologic surgery."

http://www.cipladoc.com/publications/aidsupdate/usersguide/ug.htm

needle pricks happen a lot in all types of labs. For instance, I also work with malaria and HIV but alas we do not use needles all that much, as far as diagnostics are concerned.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

so why don't they use safety needles? Is it the cost of them?

 

April 2...lets wait till than.

 

You can still get pricked with safety needles. Also the workarounds with them is that:
1) more expensive
2) harder to use
3) possibly more painful to patient
4) harder to sterilize or keep sterile

I think part 1 is the main issue.

 

the patient is a rat they are injecting with Ebola. Does their discomfort from a needle poke really matter in this case?

 

Ask the ethics committee

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

WOW, ebola--seriously heavy. Can't be too careful in a hot-zone lab

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I live in the city - Winnipeg, MB - where the vaccine was made. There are actually some decent articles in the local paper here. Perhaps nothing all of you don't already know, but an interesting read if nothing else - a few comments by some of Canada's top health officials. Here is a link to the archives:
(I can't hotlink it, because my post count is less than 20. Sorry)
winnipegfreepress.com/search/?sortBy=-startDate&keywords=ebola&searchSubmitted=y&search_submit=Go

 

anyone know, is she still alive?

 

As of last week she has not developed any symptoms (except as a reaction to the vaccine) yet.

If they waited until she developed symptoms or until antibodies were detected it would have been too late to use the vaccine.

 

The moral of the story:

Don't mess with nature. We don't really need to study ebola, being so rare, unless we want to weaponize it.

 

We don’t need to study anything that’s rare?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Filoviruses are interesting, potentially dangerous, and potentially useful. We don't know yet how they invade cells or spread, and discovering this mechanism could provide useful in combating other diseases, reveal something new about our immune systems, or even offer a novel way to safely implement gene-therapy.

 

Well said Roman. :thumbsup:

 

orleander, i doubt she would be included in any statistics or resurch on the efficasy of the vacine. It was simply a case of a humantarian use of it rather than a resurch use

 

OK here it is : Where does Ebola exist?? Only in some far away African jungle and in the most likely military labs. So the danger comes from the military labs, not from the natural existence of it.

What are the chances that anything GOOD would come out of messing with Ebola? On the other hand it makes fantastic weapon, if they can weaponize it....

For the historically challenged:

"Ebola first emerged in 1976 in Zaire. It remained largely obscure, however, until 1989 with the outbreak in Reston, Virginia."

Virginia, I don't think we are in Kans... I mean in Africa anymore!

 

Did you even read Roman's post? We're not studying it because it's a threat. We are studying it because we don't know much about it and it does not behave like other viruses.

We may not have a specific use for ebola, per se, but if we can learn things about how it functions then it may lead to important immunological discoveries. We won't know whether or not that will be the case until we study it.

 

I think you guys missed my point. Needle prick injuries have a VERY low % chance of transmitting the infection into the inflicted. Even in cases of positive specimens.

However... I would presume that accidentally pricking yourself AND injecting some of the positive specimen might increase your chances of infection exponentially based on duration of needle prick/injection.