Ebola Outbreak

In 2003 a vaccine using an adenoviral vector carrying the Ebola spike protein was tested on crab-eating macaques. The monkeys were challenged with the virus twenty-eight days later, and remained resistant.

There has been an acute worry roaming about the United States concerning the Ebola Outbreak. Originally, Ebola had never touched the United States until September of 2014. (4) The disease was originated from and named after a river in the Democratic of Congo. Since discovered, there have been known cases in Africa. There have been many very deadly cases of Ebola - the fatality rate is estimated to from about fifty to ninety percent. (2) To the United States, there had never been any worry about the disease until September twentieth of 2014. A man by the name of Thomas Eric Duncan boarded flight 822 from Liberia to Dallas, Texas. Flight 822 was where it all began. Nobody had any

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.

After the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa, GSK and Newlink Genetics, who is partnered with Merck, came out with two different experimental vaccines for Ebola. Both vaccines were first used in Liberia; some patients received the GSK vaccine, others received the Newlink/Merck vaccine, and some who received a placebo. There is also an experimental drug called ZMapp, which is basically a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies made in tobacco plants. Two doctors who were infected with Ebola took ZMapp and were cured. The vaccines are now in the third and final stages of experimentation and development and so far, according to the phase 2 (or the second stage of experimentation), the vaccines appear

In recent research a vaccination known as ZMapp, developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, is being used in an experiment to treat the outbreaks of the Ebola virus. The vaccination has just been tested for the first time on humans. The products safety and effectiveness is still being tested as to whether it will work therefore creating fewer complications for individuals. Although, it has very little research there

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.

Ebola is a virus that is transmitted to other individuals through direct contact with blood and body fluids of those infected (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). In the most recent outbreak in 2014, the video Ebola Outbreak (2014) illustrated that the virus quickly became a worldwide epidemic. As the virus became so widespread throughout Africa, Ebola-infected so many people in such a short time frame. While the organization, Doctors without Borders was intimately involved early on, they quickly learned that the manpower they had to offer was not nearly enough. The group identified that they had no way of performing contact tracing, which is a way of following patients that were contaminated and quickly led to additional cases of infection in astronomical numbers. According to the follow-up video, Outbreak (2014) the organization Doctors without Borders communicated to the World Health Organization (WHO) made a valiant

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.

The Ebola virus is deadly, but it will become a major threat to humanity if and only if it becomes airborne and a vaccine is not developed.

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.

Ebola is a serious, deadly disease that has taken too many lives. As of now there are no licensed vaccines for Ebola. However, two prospective vaccines are being tested for safety. Hopefully, we can find an effective vaccine for Ebola and eradicate the

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

THIRD POINT: There is no FDA approved vaccine currently available for Ebola. It is very important that everyone practices careful hygiene. Always wash hands with soap and

Normally infecting fruit bats, the Ebola virus found a mutation allowing it to spread to humans. This virus is an acute and often fatal illness. This virus first erupted in two outbreaks in 1976 (one occurring in Nzara and Sudan, while the other occurred in a village near the Ebola river, where the virus takes its name.) The current outbreak, starting in West Africa with the potential to spread throughout the world,  is  larger and more complex than previous outbreaks. This virus has caused more deaths than all other past Ebola outbreaks combined. With approximately five people infected with the virus every hour in Sierra Leone alone, how far – and how fast – will the Ebola virus go?