The Outbreak Of The Ebola Virus

Ebola is classified as a type of viral hemorrhagic fever, filivirus. The natural host for Ebola is still yet to be defined, but in most cases of a viral hemorrhagic fever, arthropods and rodents, such as ticks and mosquitoes, are the common hosts.

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

Ebola is the virus Ebolavirus (EBOV), a viral genus, and the disease Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), a viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF). The virus is named after the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), which is near the site of the first recognized outbreak in 1976 at a mission hospital run by Flemish nuns. It has remained largely obscure until 1989 when several widely publicized outbreaks occurred among

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.

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.

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

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the swine flu in the U.S., or the botulism outbreak in Ohio. What did they all have in common? They were all dealt with by epidemiologists. Now what is an epidemiologist? An epidemiologist, in briefest terms, is a person in the health profession who studies the causes and patterns of disease in humans, with the intent of reducing risks of “negative health outcomes” usually by way of research and implementation of health policy (“Epidemiologists” U.S. Bureau). Most epidemiologists are heavily involved in lab work. They analyze data and send it to health practitioners and the public. They often work for state governments where they address public health issues or abroad investigating diseases

In 2014 the world faced one of its worst epidemics. Ebola swept the continent of Africa, killing thousands before much of the globe even knew what had happened. The disease caused devastation to communities as loved ones were whisked away never to be seen again. Ebola affected communities and government more than initially recognized as they learned that they had been ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster and that it has prolonging psychological effects. Symptoms that are associated with Ebola include “fever, headache, joint and muscle pain, widespread bleeding, and diarrhea” (Bortel 210). According to Bhatnagar, the outbreak started first in Guinea, on March 13, 2014 where it caused 49 cases and 29 deaths (“Study of Recent Ebola Virus…”).

There are many risks and ramifications of not managing diseases when traveling from different countries. The EBOLA outbreak started in parts of Africa and has started to show up in other countries due to the spread of the virus from travelers. WHO and U.S. Army personnel have since been sent over to Africa to contain and treat EBOLA (Getz, Gonzalez, Salter, Bangura, Carlson, Coomber, & Wauquier, 2015)). Now, agencies are tracking EBOLA and have learned different protocols for containment. Since, WHO and other agencies have been working on isolating the virus there has been less cases being reported of the spread of the virus. Influenza was also fatal and if it had not been control we would have lost more people. The first outbreak of Influenza

The recent outbreak of Ebola has promoted international involvement from many organizations and governments. Most of these efforts have been focused on short-term solutions to control the disease. However, while many organizations provided medical workers, aid, and supplies to combat Ebola, their actions were insufficient to stop the spread of disease. There remains a multitude of problems in Sub-Saharan Africa, including lack of locally trained medical professionals and poor coordination between global health organizations and governments. Ultimately, these issues must be addressed in order to stop the spread of Ebola as well as other infectious diseases.

The Ebolavirus is a genus that currently consists of five different Ebola species. This group of viruses is highly dangerous in those it infects with mortality rates approaching 90%. In hierarchal order the genus, Ebolavirus belongs to the filoviridae family in which it is one of three members the others being Marburgvirus and Cuevavirus. Ebolaviruses each contain a single negative RNA strand for genetic transmission, these being transcribed into the positive RNA strand upon cell invasion. The Ebolavirus consists of long thin filamentous bodies that maybe branched and of varying lengths (see figure 1). The virus was originally identified in 1976 when an outbreak was dealt with in Zaire now known

The virus was known. They knew that it was deadly. They knew how it was transmitted, but still failed to achieve the precautions for the deadly Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever virus (Farmer 1). People never suspected that they would have to face the virus, but little did they know, it would show up some time or another. It was a monster that was naked to the human eye that claimed thousands of lives during the outbreaks in 1976 and 2014. The virus was discovered in 1976, leaving people stunned with the harm that it was capable of. It spread like a wild fire. Ebola has many deadly secrets under its walls, it infects humans unbelievably, and it’s not easily treated. It has always had people worried and it always will. How is it possible for something so tiny to cause so much harm?

Ebola was, at first, very hard to label due to the many striking similarities it holds with another disease named Marburg. Both viruses show very similar traits and symptoms, and can only be pinpointed at a microscopic scale, which makes it hard to differentiate between the two (Altman 103). Although Ebola has shown to be a very difficult virus to resolve, modern science has researched and found some information about it. Scientists now know that there are a total of four strains of the virus, with three affecting humans while only one affects primates (Frey 333). All of Ebola’s strains, along with the other similar disease known as Marburg, all are in the same virus family dubbed as Filoviridae (“Ebola Virus” 368). Ever since Ebola was found in Africa, scientists have been working diligently to find a vaccination and hopefully a cure, but their efforts have gone unsuccessful. Ebola can code the infection into a host with only twelve proteins, which is a significantly smaller amount than many illnesses today (369). This complication with the virus has contributed to the reason why there is no cure. Although this is a great detriment to the scientific community, this has not deterred the search. This has in fact motivated the community to help aid the infected with supplies and educate villages as to how to be clean and

The Ebola virus disease is formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever. The virus is now named after the Ebola River, where the virus was first recognized in 1976 (CNN). The Ebola Virus Disease has killed more than 3,800 people in the most recent outbreak, most of whom were located in West Africa (CBS). It is an outbreak

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa first broke the news in March 2014. Considered an epidemic, this outbreak killed five times more than any other Ebola outbreak combined. The virus is traced back to a two year old toddler who died in a south-eastern Guinea small village in December 2013. It took nearly three months for the health officials to identify the cause of people’s illness was Ebola. At that point, the virus had already spread and was set to explode around the world. West Africa was not prepared for this type of epidemic, the clinics had never managed this type of case, there was no laboratory to diagnose the patients, and the government had never witnessed that type of upheaval. The people initially denied the crisis because they didn’t understand why, how, or what had hit them.