Ebola,,,,, On the way to world....... Mabalo Lokela, the headmaster of a local school in Yambuku, was first case of the 1976 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Zaire. Lokela had toured with a Yambuku mission in August of 1976 near the Central African Republic border and along the Ebola river. Lokela was initially diagnosed with malaria at the Yambuku Mission Hospital, and given quinine. However, Lokela returned to the mission hospital on 1 September with high fever. Rest was recommended, and he returned home to his village of Yalikonde. By 5 September, Lokela was in a critical condition with profuse bleeding from all orifices, vomiting, acute diarrhea, chest pains, headache, and fever and in an agitated and confused state. Lokela died shortly afterwards on 8 September. Soon after Lokelas visit, a number of other cases were presented at the Yambuku Mission Hospital. A report from the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that almost all subsequent infections had either received injections at the hospital or had had close contact with another case. Shortly after family members prepared his body for burial, in accordance with local customs, 21 of Lokelas friends and relatives fell seriously ill and 18 later died. The mission hospitals reuse of unsterilized needles also contributed to the spread of infection. Yambuku Mission Hospital was a remote Catholic hospital, and had no doctors and no laboratory facilities to aid in diagnosis. Treatment was conducted by four Belgian nuns, a priest, one female nurse from Zaire and seven Zaireian males. Urgent pleas for assistance were sent out on 12 September. On 15 September, the first doctor to arrive, Dr. Mgoi Mushola, prepared a report in which he noted that none of the many treatments provided met with success. He had inadvertently produced the first description of Ebola virus disease. In all, 318 cases of Ebola were identified in Zaire, and 280 resulted in death. Yambuku Mission Hospital was closed after 11 of its 17 staff members died.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 04:33:17 +0000
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