March 1, 1996 EBOLA Imagine going on vacation to a foreign country and when you come home y ou are horribly sick. Your head hurts, you have a high fever, and you start vomiting. Chances are that you may have contracted the Ebola virus. Ebola was first discovered in the village of Yambuku (1) near the Ebola River in Zaire. Since its discover ry, there have been four outbreaks of this disease.
There are three known strains, of variations of ebola. There is no known cure for this disease (2).
Ebola has become one of the most mysterious and feared viruses onthe face of this earth. Ebola’s first documented appearance was in Zaire in 1976. Noone knows where ebola comes from or what the original host is.
However, sc ie ntists know that man is not ebola’s natural host (3).
The host was first suspected of being carried by monkeys in the African r ain forests (4), but in one case the monkeys at a holding facility broke out and had to be killed. In the pursuit of a cure and an origin, there have been several teams of scientists whose top priority is to find the viruses origin (5).
The teams have trekked through the rainforests of Africa to collecting different species of animals, bugs, and plant life.
Bugs are also coll ect ed from the hospitals and from the surrounding huts of the villages. So far 36, 000 specimens have been collected. Once they have been gathered, the specimens are put into liquid nitrogen and flown back to the United States, where they are studied at t he Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia and the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick Md. , (6).
The Term Paper on Hemorrhagic Fever Ebola Resistant Virus
... a group of diseases caused by viruses from four distinct families of viruses: filoviruses, arena viruses, flaviviruses, and bunyaviruses. The usual hosts for most of ... illness caused by infection with Ebola virus. There are four subtypes o Ebola virus (Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast, and Ebola-Reston), which are not just ...
Researchers have discovered the source of human infection for all level four organisms except ebola (7).
This means that all organisms that cause deadly viruses have been contained and studied, and have had antibodies created to ward o the ill essex that are caused.
Although Ebola is a mystery to humans, the virus is relatively hard to catch and it kills quickly, l essen ing the chance victims will infect others. It is transmitted by contact with bodily fluids like blood, vomit and semen or contaminated syringes and is not known to be passed along through casual contact (8).
When the first outbreak of ebola occur red, it was in 1976 in Zaire and in Sudan at the same time. There were 318 cases reported in Zaire and 240 of those cases prove d to be fatal. In Sudan, there were 284 cases and 134 of those cases proved to be fatal.
In 1979, there was another small epidemic in the same region of Sudan. In 1989 there was a breakout in Reston Virginia, at a monkey holding facility, that killed ov er 400 monkeys that had been shipped from the Phil lines. This strand however, is only lethal to monkeys and id not a threat to humans (9).
In 1995, there was an outbreak in Kik wit Zaire that claimed 233 lives. At least 7 people survived that outbreak because of a new breakthrough that is a possible solution to the loss of lives that are suffered in a outbreak. Blood from one sur viking patient can be transfused to a person of the same blood type to possibly save the persons life.
Such was the case in 199 5 (10).
Scientists were able to find who the first person to contract the virus was in 1995. Theman’s name was Gaspar d Menga. Menga infected his family, and his family infected others (11).
Menga is known as the index patient. The reason it is so import ant to have the index patient is that this way they can trace the patients movements and try to find the origin of the virus. S scientists are now arguing that if therewasn’t so much interference with the rain forests that therewouldn’t be new diseases emerging all the time (12) The most recent outbreak happened in January of 1996 in a small village in inland Zaire. Two child ren were playing when the came upon a dead chimpanzee and they took it back to the village where the villagers celebrated for th e finding of such a wonderful thing. The reason this was so celebrated was because meat is rare in that village. Anyone who helped clean or cook the animal became ill with the deadly ebola virus.
The Essay on Ebola Virus Outbreak Framework
Overview of the Event Ebola virus disease is a virus that is communicable through human-to-human contact as well as animal-to-human contact in which has promoted the spread of this virus that can be deadly if left untreated (WHO, 2014). Not only is the Ebola virus disease (EVD) quite contagious but is gaining momentum from community to community with lack of proper health care, containment, and ...
The final death count was 16 people. Villagers have been warned not to eat any animals that they find already dead and to be careful not to eat any sick animals that they may encounter. Scientists now believe that monkeys are not the original host because they seem to just as susceptible to the disease as humans. Scientists are hoping that they will make some substantial discoveries with this outbreak.
(13) Scientists do know t hat ebola is a strand of seven proteins (14) that belongs to a family of viruses calledfilovirusus. The virus consists of a she ll of proteins surrounding genetic material. The virus attaches itself to a host cell, and changes the chemicals makeup to fit its own so that itc an reproduce (15).
Ebola is a hemorrhagic virus that has a short incubation period of about two days to two weeks (16).
It causes high fever, chills, internal and external bleeding, vomiting, the eyes turned and the skin becomes b lot chy and bruises appear.
The surface veins and arteries erode. Organs liquefy and blood flows from every opening in the body including the eyes and ears (17).
Thesis followed by a painful death that usually occurs within three weeks (18).
There are three known strains of The virus.
Ebola Zaire, ebola Sudan, and ebola Reston. Ebola Zaire is the most lethal ofthe three fo l lowed by ebola Sudan and then ebola Reston. Ebola Reston is the least worried about because it has not proved to be hostile to humans. The question of whether or not this virus could become airborne has struck fear in many. Scientists say that it is unlikely that it will become airborne, because it is killed by ultraviolet rays within seconds.
The only way that it could su r vive is if it mutated to become resistant to ultraviolet rays. At this point, a person is more likely to contract HIV than it is to contract the ebola virus, although it takes ten years to affect a person the way ebola does in ten days. Even tho ugh ebola is a very mysterious and feared disease, itis in the process of becoming more understood. It can destroy an entire c ity in a matter of weeks, and could wipe out an entire nation if it ever became airborne, but it is a very difficult disease to contract so the united states is probably safe from any near future epidemics. On the other hand many third world countries cou ld have serious problems if there is an outbreak due to unsanitary living and medical conditions. The hospitals and medical per sonne l reuse needles that have been infected and they don’t use latex or any other kind of gloves which can be a cause of wides p read sickness.
The Essay on Ebola Virus First Disease
The Ebola virus is a deadly virus that causes bleeding and the destruction of internal tissue in humans. The Nova movie was about an Ebola epidemic in Zaire, Africa during the summer of 1995. As a result of this epidemic two hundred and forty-two of the three hundred and fifteen people infected, died. A previous outbreak occurred in the same area 19 years earlier, and according to the movie, the ...
Everyone hopes that diseases like ebola will not get out of control before a cure can be found. Such hopes see m unreasonable due to the facilities available in some areas of theworld. lable in some areas of theworld.
