You guys are absolutely correct. Of course the bottleneck is doctors and bedspace. But I think we can focus on what we can affect.

Sincerely,

Boris (Baruch) Kogan +972-58-441-3829 (Israel) (608)852-9993 (US) CEO, SwarmBuild www.swarmbuild.com http://blog.swarmbuild.com

On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 12:03 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer patrikd@gmail.com wrote:

Another word of caution regarding Ebola survivors: given the high case fatality rate, the exponential spread of the epidemic, and that it takes several months for survivors to clear all the virus out of their system, the ratio of sick patients to virus-free survivors is likely to be at least 20:1 or more.

These people are a very precious resource. But they are also human beings who have already gone through a tremendous ordeal, may have lingering health consequences, and likely have seen dozens of friends and family members die around them. And as Ellen already mentioned - everybody in the world is already planning how to best bleed them dry for their antibodies or how to put them to work in Ebola wards...

I think the focus really needs to be the other way around: how can we best support these survivors, get them in touch with family members, give them psychological support, and combat any stigma there may be around having had Ebola. Once we have that in place, we can offer them the opportunity to *volunteer* to help in the fight against Ebola, if they choose to do so.

Patrik

On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 7:26 AM, Ellen Jorgensen ejorgensen@genspace.org wrote:

...

I think this sort of thinking is very good-hearted but naive. Basic med supplies are not the problem, what they need is more docs and more beds. With a disease so deadly nobody is going to want to trust their lives to DIY-grade equipment. For example the dremelfuge has no housing and the aerosol from it sprays the operator.

Patrik and I just came back from 2 days in Washington DC at an OSTP-hosted hack session for Ebola. There we learned that the survivors are a group to be handled with care- everyone is trying to study them, get their plasma, get them to work in the wards. They are overwhelmed. So this idea of making it easier to get their plasma has to take that into account- I would guess there is already plenty of equipment there to do that but not a lot of cooperation by volunteers.

On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 9:14 PM, Boris Kogan boris@swarmbuild.com wrote:

...

Hi,

We're SwarmBuild, an online platform for digital fabrication and engineering. We are running a challenge for the DIY bio community and maker movement to create an open source, digitally fabricatable toolkit to help fight Ebola. Please check it out, spread the word and participate. I think that the fast turnaround time and ability to work within a low budget makes this movement ideally suited to come up with economical solutions to help medical personnel on the ground fight the epidemic.

http://blog.swarmbuild.com/diy-bio-killer-app-challenge-fighting-ebola-with-...

Sincerely,

Boris (Baruch) Kogan +972-58-441-3829 (Israel) (608)852-9993 (US) CEO, SwarmBuild www.swarmbuild.com http://blog.swarmbuild.com

-- Ellen D. Jorgensen, Ph.D. Executive Director & Co-founder Genspace NYC 33 Flatbush Ave. Brooklyn NY 11217