The Ebola Virus

Ebola was named for a small river near Maridi, Sudan. Since Ebola first appeared in 1967 there have been over 100 cases of Ebola with more than 50% of the patients dying within days of their acute symptoms. Ebola is classified as a biosafety level four agent because of its extreme pathogenicity and the lack of a vaccine or antiviral drug. Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus); Sudan virus (Sudan ebolavirus); Taï Forest virus (Taï Forest ebolavirus, formerly Côte d’Ivoire ebolavirus); and Bundibugyo virus (Bundibugyo ebolavirus). The fifth, Reston virus (Reston ebolavirus), has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans. Ebola has spread between countries starting in Guinea then spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, Nigeria, USA, Senegal and Mali. Ebola has been presented for more than 35 years; however, the largest outbreak began in West Africa in March 2014. Ebola was previously reported in: Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, United States, Mali, and United Kingdom. However, there are no current cases of Ebola in these countries. There were four people who were diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. The two brought ebola into the country while the other two contracted the disease after caring for an Ebola patient in the United States. One man however died from the disease and the other three recovered and are now free of Ebola. Most of these cases were due to people traveling from a country where ebola was present. This outbreak cause severe and

The control monkeys were never injected with the Ebola virus; they were placed across the room from the sick monkeys. After the control monkeys were found to be infected with Ebola it was proposed that “Ebola drifted across a room. Most likely the control monkeys inhaled it into their lungs” (Preston 93-94). Finding out that Ebola was possibly spread through the air posed as a large problem as Karl Johnson explained to Preston in an interview, “If Ebola had spread through the air, the world would be a very different place today… It would have been exceedingly difficult to contain that virus if it had had any major respiratory component” (Preston 121). The Ebola strain that Johnson encountered appeared to not be spread through the air, however there is substantial evidence that other strains are. “In 2012 Canadian researchers found that Ebola Zaire, which is involved in the current outbreak, was passed from pigs to monkeys in the air” (Cohen 1). Ebola is aggressive enough that some researchers believe it is able to enter a person’s bloodstream through a small scrape (Preston 142-143). Ebola was actually spread by medical staff in some areas such as the Yambuku Hospital where nuns used five needles a day for hundreds of their patients. This mixed blood and gave Ebola the opportunity to spread (Preston 102). It

Ebola is described by the author in deep detail telling the progression of which it goes through. It starts with a headache and backache and ends with all of your internal organs failing “bleeding out” like Charles Monet. There are four filoviruses: Ebola virus (EBOV), Sudan virus (SUDV), Marburg virus (MARV), and Ravn virus (RAVV). They are all Level 4 biohazard, which means they are extremely dangerous to humans especially because they are so infectious, have a high death rate, and there are no medicines, treatments, or cures.

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.

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is a severe and often fatal disease that can occur in humans and nonhuman primates (such as monkeys and gorillas). The outbreaks of EVD occur predominantly in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests and where contact with animals is more likely to take place. EVD is transmitted into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals (typically nonhuman primates and fruit bats). Once a human is infected it spreads in the community through skin-to-skin contact, direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected individual, or contact with environments that are contaminated with such fluids. The incubation

Some of the people who were infected first in the story were visiting a site in Kenya called Kitum Cave. A U.S. scientific expedition goes there in hopes of finding the origins of these viruses. Unfortunately for the U.S. scientists and military, the mission is unsuccessful, but the doctor who put the expedition together was able to stow the equipment used when the cave was treated as a Hot Zone. This experience and equipment made the eventual decontamination project at Reston possible. The story ends with the book's author visiting Kitum Cave to explore the place that is still suspected to be home to Ebola's host. Through all his research and writing on the book, he has learned how to keep himself as safe as possible during his explorations. Rather than searching for the actual origin of the virus, however, he is searching for the origin of the story. It’s scary to think that this has happened in our own society, and one little mistake can go a long, horrific road. Always remember to vaccinate and keep your immune system strong, because you never know what dangers are coming your

got sick and died. This outbreak infected 318 with a death rate of 93% (Le

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is a virus transmitted from humans or animals through body fluids. It is transmitted by means of contact with infected blood, mucous membranes, semen and other secretions, therefore being skin lesions and sexual contact significant ways of transmission (Boulton, 2014). As a transmittable disease, progression of the virus had been thought to be linked to higher probabilities of transmission, and therefore safety of persons in contact with infected patients was in question (Yamin et al., 2015). A study conducted in Liberia in 2014 proved such hypothesis to be true and concluded that prompt and accurate isolation of infected patients was a safe method

In 2014, Center for Disease Control and Prevention diagnosed the first Ebola case in the United Stated, from a man in Dallas, Texas that came from Liberia. It came to the United States and in many ways it appears that the country was not ready for this kind of outbreak (CNN). CDC recognized the Ebola cases in the United States a lot of concerns were raised, and death is too many. In order to protect Medical Professionals and Public Health Professionals across the country, strategies and preparations with dedicated teams to undergo extensive training that would help reduce the chance of infection, and rigorous donning of personal protection equipment (PPE) training to ensure that it would stop spreading the disease. This research will outline

The last Ebola outbreak was merely a year ago. This tragedy is fresh; I remember watching the news in fear that Ebola would come to America…until it did. First in Texas then again when two American doctors were flown from Africa to Emory. The idea of Ebola being in my back yard was absolutely terrifying! I couldn’t stop imagining what I’m going to do when I’m a medical student and a biohazard level four patient is in the same hospital as me.

To get Ebola, you must directly get infected body fluids (blood, diarrhea, sweat, vomit, urine, semen, breast milk) in your mouth, nose, eyes or through a break in your skin or through sexual contact. That can happen by being splashed with droplets, or through other direct contact, like touching infected body fluids (spread through the airborne route).  So, the health care providers, d the family and friends who in close contact with Ebola patients are at the highest risk of getting sick when they touch or are splashed by infected blood or body fluids from a sick patient.

(National Geographic)” Also, healthcare workers could potentially not want to go to Africa to help if they are going to be quarantined on arrival back in their home country. Frieden says, “health care workers might be unwilling to help out in West Africa, making it more likely the disease will keep landing on American shores. (National Geographic)” Over the short term, some cases of Ebola in the united states could be prevented, CNN states, but for the long term, it could back fire if highly trained personnel have more incentive not to go to west Africa to help with the disease. Dr. John Carlson spent four weeks working with Ebola patients and says that, “healthcare workers already sacrifice their time to those who need it, and that quarantining them might seem like a punishment, discouraging people like him to do it again. (CNN)” Some individuals also claim that Ebola is no worse than other illnesses, such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, or bacterial infections. They claim that at one point in time these illnesses had once sparked a fire of fear in hearts of people around the world and that today are looked at as not as serious when people are still also affected by these diseases daily and also die from them daily.

Fever, severe headache, joint and muscle aches, the chills and weakness (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014). Those are just some of the early symptoms of Zaire ebolavirus. This virus is also known as EBOV, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and the Ebola virus (Mulherkar, Raaben, Torre, Whelan, & Chandran, 2011). A couple days after the early symptoms appear, infected people start to feel nausea, vomit, have bloody diarrhea, red eyes, raised rash, chest pain and cough, stomach pain, severe weight loss, bleeding from the eyes and internal bleeding. Within days of infection, and without proper treatment, the infected person perishes (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2014). However, with a vaccine that would prevent the spread of Ebola, people may never experience these symptoms

Considering that the Ebola virus originated from Africa, Africa still remains the country with the highest number of infected citizens (2). The spread of Ebola has become particularly problematic in western Africa. The outbreak has killed over 40,000 people in Liberia, over 3,500 in Sierra, and over 2,536 in Guinea. Luckily, casual contact with an infected person is not sufficient enough to contaminate someone. It is through direct contact with body fluids such as the

How do you give a voice to those who are voiceless? Without journalism, many people would be blind, from luxury, pain, and love. It is journalism that unites the world. Over the past decade, technology has revolutionized what was once all on paper, changing the way journalism is published, and consumed. While social media’s presence in the industry grows every year, it is Adrienne Arsenault and her magnanimous coverage of the Ebola Outbreak, that keeps broadcast journalism alive and that impacted my desire to study it.