The Disease Spread Like Wildfire (Osterath)

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

"Ebola Facts: What Is Being Done to Improve Medical Treatment in Africa?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 July 2014. Web. 7 Nov. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/31/world/africa/ebola-virus-outbreak-qa.html?_r=0>.

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

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.

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 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

UNICEF officer, Suzanne Mary Beukes provided a clearer insight to how poor the country of Guinea is when she wrote, "The world has virtually quarantined a country in which 43 percent of people were already living on less than $1.25 a day prior to this health crisis” (Gholipour, 2014). The countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (the countries where outbreaks primarily occurred), are some of the poorest countries in the world as a result of their recent civil war and the damaged health and education infrastructures that followed. (“Factors that Contributed to the Spread of Ebola,” n.d., para. 10). The poor infrastructures led to the delayed transportation of patients and lab work to labs and hospitals in addition to the lack of communication between health facilities. In addition to the lack of health facilities, there was shortage of healthcare workers. “Prior to the outbreaks, the three countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) had a ratio of only one to two doctors per nearly 100,000 population” (“Factors that Contributed to the Spread of Ebola,” n.d., para. 15). The poverty in these cities and countries lead people to want to move to a better standard of living, be treated for the virus, and look for food &

Most people are unaware of the actual information on Ebola, they just hear a few things about it and think of the worst case scenario. If more people were informed of the actual facts about it then they would think differently of it. Even though a cure hasn't been found, there is still some form of treatment for Ebola, "Treatment of Ebola patients consists of replenishing lost fluids and providing blood transfusions" (Leduc). There has been 14,000 total cases of Ebola during this outbreak, 5,000 of these patients have actually died from the Virus. (Green) That means that 9,000 people have recovered from Ebola! This is a perfect example of why Ebola isn't going to wipe out the human race. Also out of all the patients that have had Ebola in the United States only one has died. The others have either recovered or are undergoing the treatment. The ones that have recovered are now back in they're homes, living their normal

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

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

This viral disease is very rare which causes severe bleeding and 90 percent in deaths of those who are infected. Ebola showed up without warning in the late 2000 in the northern district of Gulu in Uganda, Africa. Health care workers separated patients from others so they wouldn’t spread and get worse. There are 40 people that died in the first wave of the epidemic. The virus killed 224 people then out of nowhere it stopped and seems to have gone back into the jungle, this was in February 2001. There is a lot we still don’t know about the Ebola virus but the scientists began to piece of the things they don’t know together. The virus was discovered in the Democratic Republican of Congo in 1976. There are four different types of Ebola viruses. They are all named from where they are discovered at: Ebola – Zaire, Ebola – Sudan, Ebola – Ivory Coast, and Ebola – Reston. In 1989, the United States the Ebola – Reston virus was found in Reston, Virginia. There were sick monkeys imported from Philipines to a research lab. Some lab workers showed signs of the virus in the blood but didn’t become ill. Still don’t know where the virus is coming frombut think it resides in rain forests of Africa and Asia. The Ebola virus might as well be animal borne passed to primates like monkeys and apes and humans by another

The areas Ebola originated is being deforested at a very high rate (Solutions for Global Warming Africa, n.d). The deforestation of this region causes loss of habitat to creatures that are known to be carriers of Ebola, which means that the animals must locate a new habitat to live in. With the loss of species in the area to inhabit and infect, the virus spread to humans will decrease. Also the lack of rainfall and drought is also resulting in the deaths of the animal species vulnerable to the Ebola virus. With the decrease in species to infect, and the environment around the virus adapting to fight against Ebola, there is a strong likelihood of the virus disappearing from the local environment. However, this does not mean that the virus will completely stop. As said before, the deforestation is causing the animals that are common carriers of Ebola to relocate their habitats. The animals could migrate to Southern Africa or the Middle East, where the environment may be more hospitable for the virus to flourish. In that case the virus could spread to new species and infect new communities of humans. The other variable that the spread of Ebola relies on is the how the public is educated on the virus and how to stay safe. For example many people is Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa, when their family members came down with the Ebola virus, they would stay

The Ebola Haemorrahagic Fever, or Ebola for short, was first recognized as a virus in 1967. The first breakout that caused the Ebola virus to be recognized was in Zaire with 318 people infected and 280 killed. There are five subtypes of the Ebola virus, but only four of them affect humans. There are the Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast and the Ebola-Bundibugyo. The fifth one, the Ebola-Reston, only affects nonhuman primates. The Ebola-Zaire was recognized on August 26, 1976 with a 44 year old schoolteacher as the first reported case. The Ebola-Sudan virus was also recognized in 1976 and was thought to be that same as Ebola-Zaire and it is thought to have broken out in a cotton factory in the Sudan. The Ebola-Ivory Coast was