The Impact of the Ebola Virus on Africa Essay example

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.

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

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

Doctors, as well as medical researchers, have often stated that there exist similarities as well as difference between HIV Aids and Ebola. The most notable similarity is that the two are viral conditions. Consequently, they can be compared based on characteristics common to viral diseases. The two spread through contract with body fluids of infected persons. Ebola and HIV are incurable illnesses that result in widespread stigma. However, both differ greatly despite the fact that they are virally transmitted. Their emergence is traced to the African continent (Jin, 2015). If left untreated, they turn out to be fatal. Governmental authorities, as well as non-governmental institution, have made tremendous efforts in curbing the spread of these killer diseases all over the world.

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.

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.

What was usually a disease contained in regions of sub-Saharan Africa became a global worry. Although the outbreak started in Guinea, it quickly spread to two neighboring countries. From these three countries, cases were then transmitted to the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom. No vaccine was available to stop the spread of Ebola. This deadly disease went from being a problem in only a small region of the world to being seen in three noncontiguous countries, which could have sowed the seeds of a pandemic had the cases not been contained. As a global community, we gain from our interactions with all citizens, but we must also be aware that we can also suffer from diseases that we think of as only affecting the “others.” If we do not help those “others,” we may become part of

In his article, Charles Blow writes about how since the Ebola outbreak, our country has not been battling a virus but a mania created through politicians and the media, who both profit from public anxiety. Instead of putting our focus on finding scientific advancements, we have been led astray by such silliness. In order to prevent Ebola, we need to stop it at its source. The virus is taking heavy toll on

Despite modest health improvements in the decade or so following the end of active conflict, the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic revealed ongoing systemic issues. The global involvement in the Mano River region countries, and particularly the role of the World Health

Wendy Orent, writing this article after the Ebola outbreak, states that Ebola doesn’t have what it takes to produce a pandemic. Orent believes that there’s no way the next pandemic will spring on us, unlike the ideas of Frank Macfarlane, a virologist. Orent’s theory is that the only way a real pandemic can happen is through social conditions like refugee camps or crowded hospitals.

Care of people with Ebola is difficult and varied due to the highly infectious and often fatal nature of the disease. For instance, care can occur through traditional healers, the home, primary health care facilities and hospitals (Manguvo, A & Mafuvadze, B 2015, p. 2). Where a individual seeks care depends on the level of trust in the healthcare system, accessibility and abundance of healthcare facilities, financial and economic stance and cultural beliefs (WHO 2016). There was considerable difference in the ability of health care services to deal with infectious diseases due to scarcity in supplies and training. When the Ebola epidemic began in 2014 Sierra Leone 's government health care system was built on rigid foundations. There were scant resources, limited infrastructure, poor training on infection prevention and control and a severe shortage of health care workers with a ratio of 1.9 workers for every 10,000 people. (Michaels-Strasser et al. 2015, p. 61). The lack of IPC training lead to ‘health care workers being 100 times more likely than the general population to contract Ebola’ (Ratnayake et al. 2016, p. 2). When healthcare workers became infected colleges became frightened further reducing community trust in the healthcare system.

The Ebola Virus is an extremely deadly virus found in Africa. There have been multiple outbreaks across Africa and one in the United States. The Ebola virus basically causes uncontrollable bleeding externally and internally. Then your organs become liquefied. This usually results in death(www.encyclopedia.com). The following report contains info on the characteristics and history of the Ebola Virus.

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

If the AIDS population growth continues like it is, where does this leave Africa? By the

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?