Evolution Of Ebola Virus

Learning many things from Ebola outbreak gave the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a great inside on how to respond to the Zika virus in regards to educating the public, provide adequate staffing personnel and collaboration with other cities and countries. The CDC websites states that they are a nation’s health protection agency which works 24/7 to protect all Americans from any of threats, health and safety whether they are domestic or foreign. Its main function is to protect the public well-being and provide the most current accurate information in regards to

It is vital to understand deadly viruses and their history in order to prevent future outbreaks. Ebola leaves very few clues after annihilating its victims, so it is incredibly important to analyze those clues. Ebola’s close relationship to monkeys contains key knowledge that could hold the secret to its success. Paying close attention to how Ebola is spreading and mutating could lead researchers to the answer for preventing the contraction of it. Discovering where and how the virus first emerged could lead to Ebola’s end.

The filovirus Ebola consists of 4 families: Marburg, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, and Ebola Reston. It is a rather simple virus in structure; each contain a single strand RNA strand and 7 different proteins, 3 which are only slightly understood and 4 that are completely unknown. The virus harms the immune system like the HIV virus, but Ebola causes an explosive attack. The virus is associated with the measles and mumps family, pneumonia viruses, parainfluenza viruses which include colds, and respiratory system related viruses. Unlike common viruses which are ball-shaped, Ebola’s shape represents that similar to a shepherd’s crook, a long snake-like thread that looks like a worm. Because the Ebola virus has a distinct structure, it has been classified as a “thread virus” in its own family of viruses, the filoviruses.

This strand was discovered from the blood obtained from Sister M. E., a victim to the virus. Patricia Webb and her colleagues were the ones who discovered this new strand, therefore, had the right to name the organism. “Karl Johnson named it Ebola” (Preston 116). This virus had become extremely difficult to contain to the point that it was feared that it could threaten the existence of a species. During a conversation between Preston and Johnson, they stated, “I mean a virus that wipes us out.” “Well, I think it could happen. Certainly it hasn’t happened yet. I’m not worried. More likely it would be a virus that reduces us by some percentage. By thirty percent. By ninety percent.” “Nine out of ten humans killed? And you’re not bothered.” “A look of mysterious thoughtfulness crossed his face. “A virus can be useful to a species by thinning it out,” he said ” (Preston 114). In other words, this virus could not only cause a species to be in danger of extinction but it would cause Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest to take effect. Meaning that only those who survived the virus would be those who survived natural selection. This virus, Ebola demonstrates a full course of what Charles Darwin’s’ theory of survival of the fittest or natural selection means when a species is at

Ebola was first recognized in 1976 as the cause of outbreaks of disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire) and in Sudan. About three hundred people in each of the two nations were infected with the virus, resulting in a mortality rate of 88% in Zaire, and 53% in Sudan (Bulletin of the WHO 1978). The disease as it was discovered spread through direct contact of unmans to humans, and then thought, from non-human primates to humans. The epidemic was a result of unsafe and unsanitary hospital practices, and non-sterilized medical equipment. The disease was then contained, however sporadic outbreaks of the Zaire and Sudan Ebola subtypes have risen in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Uganda, and Sudan; one of the latest outbreaks was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in September of 2007.

As with any infectious disease, whether it originates from a virus, bacterium, or fungi, there is the possibility that it will become an epidemic. For centuries, deadly diseases have threatened to infect and possibly eradicate mankind. The Ebola virus, which causes an extremely fatal hemorrhagic fever, is considered to be one of the most aggressive contagions in the world. The Ebola virus is a member of a family of RNA viruses known as, “Filoviridae” and is composed of multiple distinct subspecies (Bausch et al. 2007). It causes Ebola Virus Disease, a fairly new disease that plagues multiple poor countries within Africa. The virus mainly attacks the lymphatic system, but also severely damages the reproductive and reticuloendothelial systems. The Ebola virus disease causes muscle pain, weakness, limited kidney and liver function and extreme blood loss due to failure of blood clotting.

After reading meany of the stories about the different science related breakthroughs in 2015 i have chosen the following three as the most important ones.

This book took place in the late 1980's, and it is based upon an outbreak of the Ebola virus in a monkey house located in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Reston, Virginia. The first occurrence of an Ebola-like virus (Marburg) takes place in Kenya and a French expatriate named Charles Monet is the first to die from this disease. His terrible and excruciatingly fatal death is described in the most horrific details by Preston. The hospital staff who treated Monet became infected with the virus as well, traveling fast throughout the hospital and carried on more deaths. The Marburg virus was first to explode in a vaccine factory in Germany in 1967. Over the next several chapters, the book describes outbreaks that occurred four years before Monet’s death. Preston then goes on to explaining how

In this section of his writing, Carl Zimmer argues that understanding evolution is essential to the field of medicine. Zimmer writes that, "A vaccine may work against one strain of a disease like AIDS, but fail against more common ones because they're only distantly related." As time passes species either adapt to their environment or go extinct. These adaptations or gene mutations can be subtle when compared to the entire population of that species, but over time these small distinctions in their genetic code can result in an entirely different species. Looking at this quote from Zimmer's writing and understanding evolution, we can comprehend that viruses can have different characteristics even though they originated from the same species.

Scientists are attempting to decipher the code that Ebola is contained in the RNA structure (ninety-nine genomes), so scientist could develop a cure to stop the prevention and contamination. However, each time the pathogen multiplies, it’s expected that the pathogen’s structure would change as well. Scientists have recorded approximately fifty changes that have happened so far in the structure of Ebola. Americans would assume that they’re on the path to defeating Ebola; however, there could be a sudden change of the structure at any given moment unless scientists could find a cure before the structure mutates

Ebola is a perfect example to show the role the evolution of viruses has on

Ebolavirus is responsible for highly lethal hemorrhagic fever. Like all viruses, it must reproduce its various components and assemble them in cells in order to reproduce infectious virions and perpetuate itself. To generate infectious Ebolavirus, a viral genome-protein complex called the nucleocapsid (NC) must be produced and transported to the cell surface, incorporated into virions, and then released from cells. To further our understanding of the Ebolavirus life cycle, we expressed the various viral proteins in mammalian cells and examined them ultrastructurally and biochemically. Expression of nucleoprotein alone led to the formation of helical tubes, which likely serve as a core for the NC. The matrix protein VP40 was found to be critical

Influenza also known as the flu will be the next virus of discussion. Like Ebola and HIV; Influenza is characterized as an enveloped virus but consist of eight segments of single-stranded RNA. The shape of the Influenza virus is as that of HIV, round. Structurally the round influenza cell is covered in an envelope that is made of a lipid bilayer with spikes of glycoproteins that are called hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. With those types of proteins, the virus is able to bind with a host cell.

The fatal Ebola virus is threatening the lives of West African people. The virus is communicable, able to spread in different ways according to the development and severity. At the low risk point of the virus, Ebola travels through bodily fluids. When evolved, there is a possibility to become air born. Monkeys, pigs, or fruit bats infected with the virus that come in contact with humans start the spreading. There are many health workers being sent to West Africa to teach the people of Liberia’s Foya District, Sierra Leone, and Guinea how to prevent further spreading of Ebola. In addition, isolation units are being built in these locations as an attempt to prevent further spreading of this deadly virus.

The Ebola Virus disease (EVD) began at in December 2013 and was announced to the public at 23 March 2014 at Republic of Guinea, then to Prefecture of Macenta , 80 km to the east .