Ebola Epidemic And Impact On Us And African Economies Essay

Historically Ebola has had a serious impact on human health and hygiene and still does due to the fact of no vaccine or treatment being discovered, but thanks to improvements in scientific and medical knowledge the virus itself is now controllable.

Currently, Ebola is mainly being spread in West Africa. So far, about 4,000 to 5,000 people have been infected with Ebola. Ebola is spreading throughout West Africa because of the hygiene and culture in the countries in that region. “To stop the spread of Ebola, the World Health Organization is coordinating the construction and staffing of treatment centers across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.” -New York Times.

In late 2013, Ebola virus disease (EVD), a deadly and lethal disease, remerged in West Africa spreading to various countries in the region. In humans, the disease is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids leading to haemorrhagic fever (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). Originating in 1976 in equatorial Africa, past outbreaks with a few hundred cases had been contained within rural, forested areas in Uganda and Congo (Piot, 2012). In 2014, a total of 20, 206 cases and 7,905 deaths were reported to have occurred in up to eight countries worldwide. Of all cases and deaths resulting from the disease, 99.8% occurred in three neighbouring West African countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (WHO, 2014). With a case fatality rate from about 50% to 90%, and the absence of preventative or curative therapies, the Ebola epidemic has led to overall global alarm and further elucidated existing global health disparities that perpetuated the epidemic with these West African countries.

In 2014, Ebola hemorrhagic fever caused an outbreak in West Africa that officially ended in 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says, “Ebola is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with one of the Ebola virus species” (“Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease)”). Ebola is caused when a person is in contact with an infected person’s blood or other body fluids. Prevention of contracting the disease include, not touching the dead body of an infected person, not touching body fluids of an infected person, avoiding places infected people are being treated, not touching bats or nonhuman primates

In 2014 the United States was hit with a force far more deadly and dangerous than many threats received. The ebola virus took the world by storm after it was carried to the United States and spread by people who had visited West Africa. This virus was all the more deadly as it often took hours for any symptoms to occur. In this time the Center for Disease Control spent much time and many resources looking for answers to the many questions they had. Under the time constraint and scrutinizing public, they had to determine what ebola was, what it did and its effects on the general public.

The whole world is at edge knowing that Ebola is a very lethal virus and it is very tough to treat and cure an infected person. But it has been seen that in countries were level of development is higher and health care is easily reached this disease can be fought.

Although Ebola was first reported in 1976, little news was released on the outbreaks which had occurred in Sudan and Zaire and which had taken away the lives of 434 people. Then in 1989 there was the Reston incident, where monkeys shipped to the United States from the Philippines, died in large numbers due to what is now known as Ebola Reston, and the virus killed all monkeys. Fortunately that particular strain was not found to be deadly to humans. For now, the Ebola virus appears again and causes large damage in Africa. The horrible disease failed to appeal to those media institution which results in the information interruption, the public do not have an access to the newly information concerning Ebola. The study on the relationship between

In 2014 the world watched in horror as West Africa experienced the largest Ebola epidemic in history. Affected countries in Africa included Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone and the epidemic, having begun in December 2013, went on for a full year, with additional cases occurring throughout 2015. Over 19,000 cases were reported by December 2014 and of those, 7,518 lost their lives. Today, we know that in total, over 11,000 people lost their lives ("Previous case counts", 2016). There were many factors at play in this outbreak, such as the emergence of a new strain Ebola virus; a lack of preparedness in West Africa, where Ebola had not been seen prior to 2014; a shortage of health care workers and subsequent death of many more them, leading

Although Ebola caught the world’s attention during the 1995 outbreak in Zaire, the first outbreak occurred in 1976. As the chart below displays, 71% of the people infected died as a result of Ebola during this first outbreak (Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 56 (2): 247-270, 1978). With the current outbreak, this ratio has dramatically decreased as a result of scientific research leading to early detection, but the current infected population is more than 20 times the amount of any previous outbreak and this number continues to grow as no vaccine exists to prevent the disease.

The world is affected by the spread of Ebola because the illness can travel worldwide. This deadly disease could potentially have very harsh affects on the world's population in its entirety. Many countries are involved, including the United States, who is supporting Africa in their attempts to stop the spread of

Despite modest health improvements in the decade or so following the end of active conflict, the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic revealed ongoing systemic issues. The global involvement in the Mano River region countries, and particularly the role of the World Health

Ebola Virus disease (EVD) is a severe and often fatal illness in humans according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) (WHO, 2016). Although initially originating in wild animals it spreads through the human population via human to human transmission of bodily fluids with the average casualty rate being about 50% (WHO, 2016). The key to prevention and control of Ebola outbreaks is through community engagement, safe burials and good health centre prevention measures (WHO, 2015). Two countries will be examined one has experienced multiple cases of Ebola, Sierra Leone, and the other a few cases, the United States of America. The

Sierra Leone was the area highest hit by Ebola currently as of the 17th of January, 2016 out 15216 laboratory confirmed cases 8705 of those were from Sierra Leone. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016) It not been where this Ebola outbreak started but when it got there, it hit the area hard. More cases steadily showed up until its peak somewhere around October to December of 2014. The cases from there quickly declined and the outbreak settled down. On November 7th of 2015, the World Health Organization officially declared Sierra Leone Ebola free. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016) This outbreak was unfortunately hard to control with little knowledge and preparation to be available to deal with it in

The FRONTLINE documentary, Outbreak, tells the story of the Ebola outbreak of 2014. They trace the disease way back to where the very first cases of it were scene. The outbreak of ebola originated in the West African country of Guinea. It quickly begins to spread to other countries like Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The spreading was a result of individuals who contracted the disease moving and traveling across Africa. Many of these countries believe that they could control the disease at a small-scale, but they surely underestimated the severity of the outbreak. As more and more cases arose, and the disease spread even within the hospitals and quarantine sites, it seemed liked there was no resolution. With so many unanswered questions and no solution

Prevention of the Ebola virus is more useful than the treatments. Improving sanitation is an important thing to do in rural African countries. Any victims need to be isolated as soon as possible. Quarantining of infected people from others plays a major role. People who have been in close contact with the infected