# Ebola outbreak in Afghanistan

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 5, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690 "2001-10-05T22:32:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kentsubra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3be4f8/32.png) [@kentsubra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kentsubra)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690/1 "2001-10-05T22:32:03Z")

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[http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/04/wref04.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/10/04/ixhome.html](http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/04/wref04.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/10/04/ixhome.html)

Makes one wonder.

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**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690/2 "2001-10-05T22:42:43Z")

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Oh, crap. This is a setup for disaster.

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**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690/3 "2001-10-05T22:46:50Z")

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It’s Ebola-like Haemorrhagic Fever, not that there seems to be much difference. It’s also not uncommon to the region, though usually not in these numbers.

What, exactly, is it making you wonder about?

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**Author:** ![3waygeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e95f7d/32.png) [@3waygeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3waygeek)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2001, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690/4 "2001-10-05T23:18:54Z")

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**Arden Ranger** wrote:

> [@](#):
>
> What, exactly, is it making you wonder about?

I’ve read press reports that bin Laden & his gang have been messing about with various chemical/biological agents, including Ebola-type viruses; that’s probably what the OP refers to.

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**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2001, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ebola-outbreak-in-afghanistan/85690/5 "2001-10-05T23:40:09Z")

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Well, hemmoragic fevers are usually self limiting in duration because they simply kill people too quickly for them to come into contact with a lot of people. My guess is that we had an outbreak of this(as **arden** said, it’s not horribly uncommon there) that unfortunately overlapped with the recent events. The Extremely close quarters of the refugee camps allowed the illness to spread more successfully than normal. but IANA Virologist