The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases, and “that’s what’s really worrying,” Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring center, told The Associated Press.

The latest disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo began on Jan. 21, and 419 cases have been recorded including 53 deaths.

According to the WHO’s Africa office, the first outbreak in the town of Boloko began after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours following hemorrhagic fever symptoms.

  • @Squorlple@lemmy.world
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    2504 months ago

    the first outbreak in the town of Boloko began after three children ate a bat

    You’re kidding me

      • @robbinhood@lemmy.world
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        194 months ago

        there have been legitimate concerns that the ongoing violence in the DRC could result in lab leaks and whatnot. I believe there are or at least once were some small lab outputs in DRC bush set up to help with monitoring for diseases.

      • @robbinhood@lemmy.world
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        434 months ago

        Economic desperation and lack of education. Think back to how dumb humans were just like 400 years ago, which is what 20 generations or something? Essentially no grasp of diseases in the modern sense. We are biologically 99.9999% or whatever the same as them.

        Ebola spread during that ~2015 outbreak in large part because local customs meant washing the dead and otherwise being in close physical contact. Sadly, people simply didn’t know better.

        • @Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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          154 months ago

          Also, this is exactly why dismantling USAID was such a phenomenally stupid idea.

          You want more plagues? This is how you get more plagues.

          • @Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world
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            14 months ago

            From how our Oligarchs have been speaking about the rest of us for quite some time, I’m thinking they want more plagues to get rid of us pesky useless eaters. Hence the destruction of our public health establishment.

  • @Lumiluz@slrpnk.net
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    974 months ago

    The year is 2024.

    Trump is elected president.

    Somewhere in the world, a butterfly flaps to the left instead of the right.

    A bat follows it.

  • @WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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    954 months ago

    The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases, and “that’s what’s really worrying,”

    That’s also great news because it’s easy to identify infections, quarantine, and contain. What would be really worrying is a hemorrhagic fever with an incubation period of 5-21 days a la covid.

    • @Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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      1674 months ago

      Just because they died right after showing symptoms does mean that’s when they were infected. Maybe you’re contagious for 3 weeks then cough twice and die.

      Have a nice day.

    • @modeler@lemmy.world
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      294 months ago

      Absolutely!

      Another example is HIV: Initial infection is just a minor flu, you’re then infectious and active for 5-10 years before becoming seriously ill with AIDS (of course this is for untreated HIV). This allowed the illness to spread for decades adapting to humans before finally being identified in the 80s, killing millions.

      • @spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        Just gonna tack on here that everyone’s favorite presidential whipping boy, ol’ Ronnie shithead Reagan, was partially responsible for allowing it to continue spreading. Hell, his press secretary or some equivalent laughed at the one reporter that actually asked about it and implied the reporter was a homosexual. He also abandoned his buddy Roy Cohn because of it too.

        May he rot in piss.

        • @Gigasser@lemmy.world
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          44 months ago

          I’m afraid there may be a resurgence of the HIV denialism movement given that RFK is now secretary of health.

          • @VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.works
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            34 months ago

            HIV denialism

            Because of widespread use PREP/PEP, there’s a growing number of people who stopped using any protection including the aforementioned meds…

          • @Koarnine@pawb.social
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            14 months ago

            Given that he thinks HIV/AIDs is the result of Amyl Nitrate abuse already, he just has to say it official.

  • @ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    814 months ago

    Unless there’s a longer dormant period where this is contagious, but shows no symptoms, this disease kills too quickly to become a world pandemic.

    • Kushan
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      634 months ago

      Anyone that’s played plague Inc knows how this goes. It’s not a winning strategy.

      • @robbinhood@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah but one of these days a virus is going to get smart and start up in New Zealand and Madagascar. Chuck in a long asymptomatic (edit: contagious period) and game over.

        Come to think of it, why haven’t viruses done this yet? What are they, stupid?

        • @Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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          194 months ago

          What I never got about this game is that when the virus mutates, ALL copies of that virus mutate in the exact same way. Couldn’t they make a realistic version?

          • @JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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            144 months ago

            A realistic version would be pretty boring. That’s basically the same as just working for the CDC.

            • @jj4211@lemmy.world
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              54 months ago

              Under this administration, working for the CDC is probably not as boring as it usually is.

          • @robbinhood@lemmy.world
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            124 months ago

            Oh shit bro delete this. We don’t need to be giving Trump any ideas.

            It’s a bit of a toss up for me between staying in virus plagued USA or locating to Trump’s new monarchy in Greenland.

        • sadbehr
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          54 months ago

          Hello! I’m from New Zealand. Why is the scenario of a virus starting here a bad thing?

          • @robbinhood@lemmy.world
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            184 months ago

            It’s a Plague Inc. joke. In this game, you’re the virus/bacteria, or whatever other disease. You guide the virus’s evolution with the aim to destroy humanity.

            The virus slowly spreads across the earth through planes, boats, etc.

            There are a few really isolated spots, including New Zealand, that are hard to get to and they often seal their borders very quickly. When that happens you lose.

            So the smart first step is to start the virus in one of the hard to reach places.

        • @ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          14 months ago

          A ton already are!

          Most viruses, we don’t even notice them… the really virulent ones cause few, if any symptoms.

          We just generally don’t worry about them, is all.

    • @chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      64 months ago

      That’s true with a higher mortality rate.

      It has killed around 10 percent of victims, so it can be spread by the rest.

    • @Karjalan@lemmy.world
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      34 months ago

      It also depends on its mortality rate. The, article says 50 died but over 900 infected.

      Still incredibly high, but initially it seemed like it was much higher. If enough asymptomatic, or non deadly people catch it and pass it on, it’s still pandemicable, just less effective.

  • MedicsOfAnarchy
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    754 months ago

    Note to self: Do NOT eat bats. Even if Mom says, “We’re having bat tonight”.

  • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    614 months ago

    When this civilization falls and the next one is beginning there’s going to be a religious ban on eating bats.

  • @the_q@lemm.ee
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    524 months ago

    The earth will be ok. One day we’ll be gone and she’ll be just fine.

      • Victor
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        144 months ago

        I’m pretty sure when people say that they mean “save the [current state of the] earth [so we can continue living on it together]”.

    • @HalfSalesman@lemm.ee
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      124 months ago

      Its too bad I don’t care about the rock we’re floating around in space on and mostly care about me and my loved ones.

      • @gamer@lemm.ee
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        64 months ago

        This is a dumb framing. People want to stop climate change to protect themselves and their loved ones from having to live in an inhospitable hellscape and doom humanity to extinction, not because of an emotional connection to the actual planet.

      • @the_q@lemm.ee
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        34 months ago

        Oh you didn’t need to tell us you care more about your stuff then anyone else’s, bud.

        • @HalfSalesman@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Fine, and the the innocent people on it. Jesus fucking Christ.

          My point was that Earth itself is just an object with things living on it.

          I might be aggressively fucking angry at like 90% of the voting eligible populace in America but there are a ton of other people that don’t fit into that category that don’t hold my ire.

  • @HughJorgens@lemmy.world
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    504 months ago

    If you want to stay up for a few nights, read The Hot Zone, which is about Ebola. Those bats are gonna kill us all someday, and there are so many of them!

    • HellsBelleOP
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      554 months ago

      It’s not the bat’s fault really. If us humans would stop encroaching further into their territory and stopped warming the planet to the point of no return, we might not be having such extreme issues with zoonotic viruses we’ve never encountered before trying to kill us.

        • HellsBelleOP
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          194 months ago

          If people aren’t living in the bat’s territory they wouldn’t be eating them either.

          • @ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            84 months ago

            Tbf, even if we gathered all people in one giant city to stop encroaching, bugs would follow us due to our food storage/waste and blood, and bats would follow the yummy bugs and make homes in the structures we make, which like for pigeons are often good for bats too. Bats, rats, and some birds you’ll never be able to really escape by avoiding nature because they follow us or something else that does.

            • @AoxoMoxoA@lemmy.world
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              114 months ago

              I was tripping on shrooms on day, looking at the grass and noticed an ant scurring around then another and little, tiny beetle looking bugs. Then i looked out across a field and saw gnats,bees ,wasps , flys, 20 or 30 birds in the distance , a couple squirrels and thought about the worms under my feet and realized this is their world we just live in it. We are outnumbered a million to one and they don’t need us at all

        • @andros_rex@lemmy.world
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          24 months ago

          It’s the Congo.

          King Leopold was one of history’s greatest monsters. Rubber tree plantations - they’d chop a hand off or worse if you didn’t make quota. (The Heart of Darkness, later retold as Apocalypse Now, later retold as Spec Ops: the Line.)

          The region has been ravaged for the past two centuries. Remember Kony 2012? Those starving children could have been soldiers.

      • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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        44 months ago

        This has nothing to do with climate change that generic area of the world has always beet stock-full of nasty diseases. Even considered by African standards of unlucky geography the Kongo basin is triply fucked.

    • @Wahots@pawb.social
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      14 months ago

      https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51N5u7HMbaL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

      This one will keep you up at night, it was SO fucking interesting. It’s basically a story about a crime fighter who goes in and solves really complex crimes…but all the crimes are weird diseases, like strange brain swelling diseases that are gonna kill a ton of people in the US, and the detective has to figure it out before a bunch of people die.

      We have the technology to solve insane cases, but we are completely hamstrung by mentally deficient politicians like our current idiot and his party. And how we still prevailed despite their obstructions.

  • @werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    454 months ago

    They had a previous outbreak in December that was diagnosed as malaria. This outbreak is not that one but malaria has not been confirmed as the culprit.

    In any case, please don’t go to Congo to bring whatever it is to the rest of the world. Let WHO experts figure it out…if only a retard president had not pulled funding for that vital global health organization.

      • @meliaesc@lemmy.world
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        184 months ago

        Genuine question, would calling him an idiot, or some other euphemism, be better? It all boils down to “ableist” if you consider it deeply. How do you insult an individual without insulting people like them?

          • @commander@lemmings.world
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            24 months ago

            We should be allowed to insult people for their lack of intelligence.

            Stupid people should not feel as though they have the same voice as everyone else.

            Unfortunately, their voice is louder.

        • LustyArgonian
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          4 months ago

          In general, value statements are meaningless except as an emotional expression and are a sign of an inability to be articulate and specific in what an issue is. It’s kinda why ad hominems are considered fallacies. Trump is a giant piece of shit though and that’s fine to say

            • LustyArgonian
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              4 months ago

              LOL, that you think loyalists are better than educated people who can tolerate hearing philosophies they don’t agree with and then being able to CONSENT once they understand, or dissent if they don’t agree

              You think education is angering because it’s hard for you to learn

              And you think mindless agreement in a cult setting is my DESIRED outcome for working with others

              Even toddlers understand to not use that word or slurs, and can learn to not do so. Toddlers make an effort because they care about fairness. Go watch some Mr Rogers and see if you can’t be as progressive as a toddler in the 70s.

              Fascists, man

        • @Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world
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          14 months ago

          “Idiot” was once a medical term for severely mentally disabled people, along with imbecile and moron for less severely mentally disabled. Those terms were used to insult people and eventually became pejorative. The term “Retarded” was introduced to avoid the insult associated with “Idiot”. Now “retarded” is insulting and has been replaced by “developmentally disabled” or “special” or other such nonsense.

      • @gamer@lemm.ee
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        114 months ago

        Speak for yourself. I’ll slur all his disabilities any chance I get.

    • @collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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      194 months ago

      I am thinking a Congo vacation might be the cheapest thing I can do to save America. Go straight fro the Congo to a Republican fundraiser.

    • @Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      54 months ago

      I haven’t seen the r-slur used since the mid 2000s, and now suddenly it’s everywhere in the past 2-3 weeks. Why are we back-pedaling on even the most basic decencies?

  • TheRealKuni
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    274 months ago

    ate a bat and died within 48 hours following hemorrhagic fever symptoms

    Are we seeing another Ebola outbreak? Or is this a different viral hemorrhagic fever?

  • @ElJefe@lemm.ee
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    244 months ago

    I apologize in advance for my ignorance. But why do people like to eat bats? Are they particularly nutritious? Or is it a matter of access to foods and resources? Are they really yummy? And why didn’t Ozzy contract any weird deadly disease?

    • @Wahots@pawb.social
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      364 months ago

      This is why we had programs like USAID. To keep people from starving and eating infected animals harboring endemic viruses we know nothing about.

      Even in the US, it’s highly inadvisable to eat animals/bush meat infected with CWD even if it technically can’t infect humans …yet.

    • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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      304 months ago

      is it a matter of access to foods and resources

      This is generally why people eat certain things, yes.

  • MedicsOfAnarchy
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    We ordered the one that infects “red hat”, not “fed bat”. Blame a bad connection, but we’re not paying for this Congo Labs. Try again. (Edit: forgot /s)