Chris Thompson, a Biosafety Consultant who travels
worldwide, consulting and teaching classes in biosafety spoke to Kiwanis
regarding the Ebola scare. Chris
Thompson is Past-President of the American Biological Safety Association and
spent 30 years as a Biosafety officer with Eli Lilly and Company. She is currently a Biosafety Consultant with
WCG Biosafety and owner of Thompson Biosafety.
She and her husband Lyman are members of the Greenfield Kiwanis cub.
Ebola is one of several “What’s going to Kill Us All?”
scares including HIV in the 1980’s, Y2K in 2000, Swine Flu in 2009, and North
Korea in 2013. Ebola is a virus believed
to have spread to humans from wild animals with the first recorded outbreak in
Africa in 1976. Numerous outbreaks in
Africa have occurred since. The 2014
outbreak began in western Africa in March.
Ebola is spread only by direct contact with body fluids of a
person who has symptoms. Direct contact
means through broken skin, mucous membranes of the eyes, nose or mouth. Bodily fluids include, vomit, feces, blood
and saliva.
Ebola is NOT spread through the air, water, food or by mosquitoes or other insects.
The epidemic(s) in Africa occur because of the lack of
infrastructure (e.g., sewers, clean water, and sanitation), lack of hospitals,
quality of medical care, lack of healthcare workers and training, lack of
protective equipment and cultural issues.
Chris suggested that we need to be more concerned about
influenza, measles, influenza, whooping cough, influenza, and those diseases
for which we have vaccines and those who refuse to vaccinate themselves or
their children. Her advice is to get
vaccinated and wear your seatbelts.
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