Posted on 08/02/2014 9:22:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Parts of Africa are in the throes of the deadliest outbreak of Ebola in recorded history
The latest outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa is the deadliest in recorded history. It has killed at least 729 people since March and infected more than 1,000, including several Americans.
The grave situation prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue travel warnings on Thursday to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. They urged travelers to forgo all nonessential travel to those countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) calls Ebola one of the world's most deadly diseases, but what exactly is it? And why is it spreading? Here's 10 things to know:
1. What is Ebola?
The Ebola virus disease is a severe, contagious illness that damages the vascular system, causing bleeding and high fevers. It has a high fatality rate: from 60 to 90 percent. The virus first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in Sudan and one in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred close to the Ebola River, which gave the disease its name.
Ebola is almost entirely confined to Africa. It usually appears in waves of outbreaks, partly because when someone contracts the virus, it spreads from person to person so fast that it's difficult to contain.
2. Why have we heard so much about this particular outbreak?
In March, Guinea received confirmation that Ebola was the illness responsible for an alarming number of deaths. The disease has since reached Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, making this the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever.
This outbreak is also worrying because of its geography. The regions affected today are in West Africa, but this strain of the virus is native to the forests of Central Africa. It is not yet known how the disease was carried from one region to the other.
Doctors Without Borders said the disease, which has been raging for months, is "totally out of control," and efforts to stop its spread have proved difficult.
3. Why is the disease reported only in Africa?
There are five strains of Ebola: Four are native to Africa, but one is actually native to the Philippines and China. The only place that the disease has been observed spreading from animals to humans is Africa.
The disease is generally spread to humans from animals native to specific regions of Africa, including primates, rats and bats. Contagion may occur from handling infected animals, ingesting infected meat from these animals, or contact with their bodily secretions. Ebola spreads especially quickly in some African countries due to misinformation. Some hunters eat infected "bushmeat." Some burial procedures encourage close contact between mourners and infected corpses.
Health professionals have had difficulty convincing people to follow strict isolation procedures that might help contain the spread of the virus.
4. Why is it so deadly?
The Ebola virus causes severe bleeding and organ failure. Initial symptoms include fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. These symptoms are followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, impaired kidney and liver function, and sometimes internal and external bleeding, according to WHO.
In short, the virus finds a way to rob the body of both blood and fluids, a particularly deadly combination. Other research showed that the virus may also suppress immune response. Death rates are also elevated by poor health care in the countries where Ebola has struck.
5. Why does it spread so fast?
Dr. Gary L. Simon of the George Washington University specializes in infectious diseases and tropical medicine. He said that the disease is not actually all that contagious -- but quarantine practices in certain African countries have been difficult to enforce.
When a person comes into contact with an infected person or animal, transmission occurs from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with blood or other bodily fluids like stool, urine, saliva, sweat and semen.
The disease is also difficult to detect in the early stages, as it shares symptoms with many other diseases. By the time the virus is detected, the infected person will be very sick and will likely have transmitted Ebola to other people.
6. Is there a cure?
There is no known cure. An experimental serum was provided Thursday to a U.S. charity worker in Liberia who is infected with the disease.
"Supportive therapy" to regulate a person's bodily temperature and blood pressure is the only treatment.
Dr. Jackie Eghari-Sabet, of the Family Allergy and Asthma Care in Maryland, compared the search for an Ebola cure to that of the search for an HIV cure. She said virologists have a lot of experience to work from.
7. When are people contagious?
People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. The incubation period (the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms) is two to 21 days. In one case, Ebola virus was isolated from semen in a man who was infected in a laboratory 61 days prior.
8. Are there any lasting effects in survivors?
Although fatality rates are high, some people do survive Ebola. Medical experts are still trying to understand why Ebola has such a low survival rate; they say any chance of beating it depends on early access to medical care when the first symptoms show up.
Most people who survive Ebola will likely be able to return to a normal life; however, they may develop certain chronic conditions affecting their joints and eyes. These problems could stick around for the rest of a survivor’s life.
9. Has Ebola ever left Africa?
Yes, but only in primates. Three of these events occurred in America: in 1989, 1990 and 1996. In 1989 and 1990, quarantine facilities in Reston, Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania and Texas, saw a new strain of the disease in infected monkeys imported from the Philippines. The virus was known as the "Reston virus." The same happened in Texas in 1996. No human got sick in any of those cases.
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta will receive one of the infected American health workers for treatment in an isolation unit, the hospital announced Thursday. 10. Are authorities testing travelers at U.S. airports?
Not currently. GW's Dr. Simon said that, in his opinion, to do so would be "foolish." "This is not a hugely infectious disease, if only about 1,000 people in a population of millions have contracted it," he said.
The volume of travelers through the airports would make such testing very difficult, slow and expensive. Also, the risk of transmitting the disease from one passenger to another during a flight is low.
At the moment, the risk is contained to certain patches of the Southwest and Central Africa, and the CDC doesn't consider the risk of Ebola infection in the U.S. significant.
Dr. Simon said he thought that if the virus reached the U.S., it would not be as much of an issue as it currently is in Africa.
"I think we could contain it," he said. "We have very good isolation procedures here."
I’m more worried that what would happen if it mutated with the Staph bacteria that are prevalent in American hospitals that cannot be killed by antibiotics. Or even better if it comes into contact with H1N1. Spanish flu x 100. Nature has a way of thinning the herd, problem is that man has learned how to beat nature. It happened before with the Spanish Flu. The next time will be worse because of air travel. The next highly infectious virus that is airborne and has a high mortality rate will be unstoppable. It will be something we’ve never seen before. Something grown in a lab somewhere out in the desert or forest that no one knows about. Genetics are a huge newer technology that most Westernized countries have strict laws governing things like that. But I’m sure somewhere out there is a group of mad scientists breeding diseases and viruses. Chances are somewhere they have something that would kill every human on earth if released on an international flight, or in a major international hub.
If I want a thrill I’ll take up base jumping or bungee jumping off bridges. No way am I getting within a thousand miles of an Ebola outbreak and I don’t respect these Western doctors and aid workers who do. They are looking for thrills and bragging rights back home. Yes there is some altruism and religious motivation but it is misguided. The need to find another outlet for their do-goodism.
1. What is Ebola?
You're right. I NEVER thought I'd ask that question about Ebola.
Yeah I really don’t understand how they can say it would be easily to keep a handle on here.
A simple way to screw up everything:
We have an outbreak during regular influenza season. So people are having those “early symptoms” by the millions and 999 out of 1000 are common flu. You can’t just put them all in ebola isolation ward with the rest of the ebola patients. For one thing there would be too many and for another you’d end up infecting them all with ebola when all they had was the flu.
And in the time it would take to run tests on them all, they’re all infectious... but you don’t know if they are the 999 with the flu or the 1 with ebola... until after the test.
How on earth would we handle that?
They’re just assuming that it simply could not get that far. But all that would have to happen is just a handful of cases in inner city areas of a few cities and suddenly you’d have no idea whether any given case was flu or ebola.
You’d have to trust the population to self isolate anyone sick and not touch them or their clothes or bedding. And the few poor souls who have ebola... it would be too late to help them by the time the advanced symptoms show up.
This is why I don’t understand their “don’t worry” attitude. Yes, it’s not super easy to transmit because it isn’t airborn but even in western countries you’re likely to have human contact during the early infectious period.
I’m confused...
I’ve read that article, it looks like we are ahead of the game, we have already started preparing for it and are treating an American doctor with great experience with it, and who has contracted the disease.
After 38 years, the death toll is approaching 2,000 dead and it is time to try to put it out.
When I ask for a bowl of chili, do I need to worry about being mistakenly served ebola?
And when you die, what’s left of you isn’t much more than a skinbag full of bones and liquefied guts, and a lot of amplified virus looking for a new home.
Freind, have you had a big hot heaping bowl of ebola lately??
Well, that’s too long!
What’s eating you today?
Spiraling out of control in three third world cesspools where disease runs rampant. They don’t have the sanitation, the personnel, facilities or the manpower to deal with this. America does. I wouldn’t worry about it.
If I’m made mayor of I told you so town. I’ll eat my keyboard.
Only if the cook, waiter, busboy or hostess happened to cough, sneeze or sweat on the bowl, silver ware, glasses or menu.
Menu? Better add in all of the other patrons that may have held the menu in the last several days. (The virus can survive on hard surfaces at a large range of temperatures for several days).
lolz
flesh eating bacteria... yum!
On Sale Now!
Only 2,000 cases. Not one case in America. 2,000?
The common flu is laughing at Ebola.
Now typhus can be tough, but it’s treatable nowadays
The local meat market guy was in the hospital for 3 weeks with typhus... he looked like a wreck who could barely stand when he came back to work...
I didn’t eat the turkey he cut for us that day
Aids came out years later than Ebola, and it has killed 36 million since 1981, it killed 1.6 million in 2012, and we don’t even think of it anymore.
Yep. Ebola is not a big deal.
I just wonder where AIDS came from. I wonder where half of these viruses came from, they were never around until the end of the last century. Any thoughts?
The ACLU will sue to stop any quarantining and the condom will again be trotted out as the "magic bullet" that will prevent spreading the disease so that indiscriminate anal sex can continue with multiple partners.
To suggest that public health should be more important will get you labeled a bigot and a hater.
Human/animal sex. Also the fact they eat weird food in Africa like monkeys, rats, and bats.
Okay, maybe. But people were having sex with animals and eating strange food since the dawn of time. Why not then, why now?
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