re: Ebola successfully treated with HIV drug

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You call 70% mortality rate and over 2000 dead mild?

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Try not to be upset by the language as if it were dismissive. It's not. His following post explains what he means, and he's right.

There are a handful of Ebola virus species in the broader Ebolavirus family (literal taxonomic "family" and "species"- not talking about strains of the same species). The 1976 outbreak in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo) killed 280/318 (88%) infected. This species was, for a while, referred to as the Zaire ebolavirus. It has since been come to be renamed simply "ebola virus." Many outbreaks in the past you'll here about refer to one of the other 4 family members: Sudan (mortality rates of 54%, 68%, and 53% in 76, 79, and 00-01, respectively), Reston (not documented to cause disease in humans, to date, but wreaks havoc on nonhuman primates), Ivory Coast/Côte d'Ivoire (one, single case in a human described- a labworker who took tissue samples from dead chimps who had died of hemorrhagic fever. She was treated for 2 weeks in Switzerland, and fully recovered 6 weeks later), and Bundibugyo (new species first detailed in 2008, 116 cases, 39 deaths, or 34% mortality).

So, in terms of all the Ebolavirus family, a 70% mortality rate is definitely on the more severe side. However, the current virus is, specifically, EBOV/Ebola Virus/Zaire Ebolaviruses in nature, and a 70% mortality rate in that species is lower than average. The word "mild" may not necessarily be the best to describe it, but it most definitely is milder than other strains in its species. I would not necessarily agree that the lower fatality rate is the sole cause of the increased number of cases and the reason that the infected haven't rapidly died off so as to not spread to others. The time course seems to be roughly the same as with other viruses. It's probably a contributing factor, but it's probably not the sole factor. Being in areas of higher population concentration alone may be both the reason for the rapid spread and the lower fatality rate, because the health care is better. Unfortunately, that is not known at this time. But try not to miss the meaning of his post- it's not meant to be upsetting or dismissive of how severe of a disease process or epidemic this is.