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Meliandou Fever

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On December 25, 2013, people worldwide were enjoying Christmas with loved ones. However in Meliandou, Guinea, the picture was bleak for a one-year-old boy named Emile and his family (1). Emile had begun shivering, so his concerned parents checked his temperature where they discovered Emile had a fever. They did what any parent would do with a child running a fever; they tried to get the fever down and gave Emile some soup. Despite their best efforts, the fever worsened and would not come down. Shortly after the fever began, Emile had onset of vomiting and diarrhea. Only three days later, young Emile died. Imagine the heartache and extreme grief Emile’s parents must have experienced losing their young son, knowing he would never grow …show more content…

Her parents wasted no time and brought her straight to the hospital. Like her brother, Philomene's fever could not be brought down and she began vomiting. Her nurse believed she had malaria because her symptoms fit the disease’s description and malaria is very common in the area. A few days later Philomene passed away, with her death adding to the growing list. At this point, any parent would be devastated, but Emile and Philomene’s parents would endure more. The night of Philomene’s death, her mother, who was seven months pregnant, became very sick and started excessively bleeding. A few hours later she had a miscarriage and then she passed away as well. Her husband, the only person remaining from his family, began screaming, “The village has killed my family! The village has killed me!” Unfortunately, his family’s deaths were not the last, but the beginning of a deadly and rapidly spreading outbreak. Instead of the killer being malaria like the nurse had suspected, the true killer was the Ebola virus. As a result, Emile was patient zero to the largest outbreak of Ebola, still ongoing …show more content…

The high mortality rate associated with this disease is largely due to the lack of effective preventive vaccines or therapeutic drugs. Despite that the fact that the virus was first discovered in 1976, very little research into developing a vaccine or a treatment to aid in recovery from Ebola has occurred since its discovery (3). Due to the most recent Ebola outbreak in western Africa, researchers are finally tackling the obstacle of finding a cure to ebolavirus. As a result of this, an urgent question that needs to be addressed is why no one has dedicated his or her focus on researching an Ebola vaccine or treatment until the current outbreak. However, there is no single answer to this question. The lack of research and an Ebola vaccine and/or therapeutic drug is the direct effect of the political, social, and ethical injustices that have plagued Africans for numerous decades. This research plans to address these various injustices that have been committed by pharmaceutical companies and the world on the citizens of Africa as well shed light on the virus, its history, and the current vaccine production

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