I mean, it's a sad story but I'm not entirely sure I have much to say about it. I doubt I'm unique.

> Hacker News Guidelines

> What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Why comment on a post that will be gone in 20 minutes?

> while the US has already proved it can treat this when on our shores, with run of the mill blood transfusions, from the last time this happened

Source?

America is not to blame for them being unable to have a functional government for how long now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_the_Democratic_R...

People eat the reservoir species for these diseases in these areas. Not much local government can do about something that has been done for all of human history. Can't exactly tell a hungry person capable of hunting for themselves to stop hunting for themselves and go without.

> what is it about this part of the world that seems to be a hotbed for Ebola

Utter poverty. No money for wastewater and freshwater treatment, no money to pay for good food instead of hunting wild game and properly (!) processing and storing it, no money to pay for healthcare and basic hygienic supplies, no money to pay for proper housing to keep pests away.

In other diseases, even modern Western countries aren't far away from serious issues if even one of these preconditions collapses. Homeless encampments are a persistent source of nasty bugs, you get water boil-off orders after damages to the tap water systems for similar reasons, and hell Covid showed how vulnerable we are to supply chain interruptions for basic PPE.

> then how is it spreading given that it spreads via blood and vomit.

Water, mostly. Bad sanitation is one of the major drivers behind most if not all epidemics. If you don't have clean water to drink because your wells are contaminated with fecal matter, you're screwed.

Look up “African dry sex”. Sorry.

A handful get infected from direct exposure to animals. Then it spreads to family and others in the community. Sometimes people travel and bring it to a new location. Sadly, it is often the caregivers who get infected.

> * how is it spreading given that it spreads via blood and vomit*

Note that this isn’t the Zaire ebolavirus. We’re still pinning down specifics.

> Can someone please educate me on how ebola is spreading? are these 100 deaths because of virus transmission from infected animals or from humans?

Human to human.

Its not only "blood and vomit", it is any bodily fluid, so you also have sweat, saliva, breast milk and semen.

So you therefore have bedding, clothing, or medical equipment soiled with infected fluids.

And preparation of the body after death.

In addition, delayed diagnosis is not uncommon.

Access to and adherence to infection control can easily be a problem.

So, in essence you have various routes to amplification of spread.