Ebola History By Africa Check and May Olusola In February 2014, an outbreak of the Ebola virus was identified in the south-eastern forests of Guinea, Africa. It was the first time the virus had been recorded in the West African state. By March, it had spread from Macenta, Gueckedou and Kissidougou to the capital city of Conakry. By April, cases were confirmed in two more districts – Dabola and Djingaraye – and in neighboring Liberia. The disease has since advanced to the capitals of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and it has killed two doctors, Dr Samuel Brisbane from Liberia and a Ugandan, with two more seriously ill. To date, Nigerian officials are racing to prevent an outbreak in Africa’s largest city after a Liberian/US citizen from Liberia died in Lagos shortly after arriving at the airport. All entry points into Nigeria are on red alert. Médicins sans Frontières has called this outbreak – the world’s largest recorded to date – “unprecedented”, due to its broad geographic spread. The World Health Organization (WHO) have recorded 1,201 cases attributed to the Ebola virus, including 672 deaths. Ebola is a terrifying phenomenon: it kills up to 90% of infected people; death can occur in as little as a week; prior to death, patients may hemorrhage (bleeding internally and externally). There is no vaccination and there is no cure. The origins of Ebola Ebola placesThis colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) obtained on March 24, 2014 from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, reveals some of the ultra-structural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus vision. The Ebola virus is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the disease claimed its first known victims in 1976. A separate strain broke out simultaneously in Nzara, Sudan. Unlike bacteria, which are single-celled organisms that multiply by dividing themselves, viruses require hosts to replicate: they take over living cells and then force the infected cells to reproduce the virus. While bacteria can be combated with antibiotics, the same is not true of viruses. Ebola is a ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus and multiplies rapidly in its host by creating a high pathogen dose. Science writer David Quammen, who has investigated the origins and spread of the virus, writes that “[RNA viruses] produce acute infections, severe for a short time and then gone. Either they soon disappear or they kill you.” In the process, “sneezing, or coughing or vomiting or bleeding or diarrhea facilitates transmission to other victims.” There are five known species of the Ebola virus: Bundibugyo ebolavirus; Zaire ebolavirus; Reston ebolavirus; Sudan ebolavirus; and Taï Forest ebolavirus. All but the Reston strain can be fatal to humans and all but the Reston strain are found in Africa. Until recently, the Zaire strain of Ebola was thought to be behind the current outbreak, with the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) noting a 98% match between the West African and Zaire strains. The Zaire strain of Ebola is the most deadly: it attacks all organs in the body, including the skin, and can have a fatality rate of up to 90%. Since its first appearance – and excluding the current outbreak in West Africa – the strain has killed 1,098 of the 1,388 people it has infected, an average case fatality rate of 79%. However, a team of experts studying the West African strain reported in the New England Journal of Medicine recently that the Guinea outbreak is a new strain of the virus: though closely related to Zaire ebolavirus, the current strain is endemic to West Africa and developed parallel to the central African ebolavirus strain. According to the team’s investigation, the strain’s outbreak can be traced to the death of a two-year-old child in Gueckedou on December 6 last year
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 19:58:26 +0000
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