Ebola Virus Disease

The standard treatment for Ebola is still limited to supportive therapy as no vaccines are yet available for clinical use. The supportive therapy consists of balancing the patient’s fluids and electrolytes, maintaining the patient’s oxygen status and blood pressure, and treating the patient for any complicating infections. Treatment from the day the virus is contracted is important but extremely challenging due to the fact that Ebola is very difficult to diagnose in its early stages of infection. However, if a person has the early symptoms of Ebola and there is reason to believe that Ebola should be considered it is extremely important that the patient is isolated

In 2014, Ebola hemorrhagic fever caused an outbreak in West Africa that officially ended in 2016. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says, “Ebola is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with one of the Ebola virus species” (“Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease)”). Ebola is caused when a person is in contact with an infected person’s blood or other body fluids. Prevention of contracting the disease include, not touching the dead body of an infected person, not touching body fluids of an infected person, avoiding places infected people are being treated, not touching bats or nonhuman primates

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.

Although Ebola caught the world’s attention during the 1995 outbreak in Zaire, the first outbreak occurred in 1976. As the chart below displays, 71% of the people infected died as a result of Ebola during this first outbreak (Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 56 (2): 247-270, 1978). With the current outbreak, this ratio has dramatically decreased as a result of scientific research leading to early detection, but the current infected population is more than 20 times the amount of any previous outbreak and this number continues to grow as no vaccine exists to prevent the disease.

It also occurred for over a year. The source of the Ebola outbreak is still unknown since its first outbreak in 1976. There is a risk of Ebola spreading to unaffected countries, but the outbreaks could be contained before they become an epidemic. There has been a checklist put into play to help high-risk countries and hopefully prevent an EVD outbreak. This checklist includes: overall coordination, rapid response, public awareness, community engagement, infection prevention and control, case management and safe burials, epidemiological surveillance, contact tracing, laboratory capacity, and capacity-building for points of entry. The development of diagnostic tools, therapies, and vaccines for these rare but potentially devastating epidemic diseases must be prioritized during the diseases inter-epidemic periods. The most important thing to prevent the future outbreak of the EVD is bridging the gap of development between African countries, and the rest of the world. This is especially true in the aspect of healthcare. When the Ebola outbreak happened in 2014 in Africa, there were only one or two doctors to take care of every 100,000 patients. A lot of health care works also contracted the disease because they were not wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment (The Ebola Virus Disease: Problems, Consequences, Causes, and

Discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River, Ebola’s first two outbreaks in Sudan and Zaire killed the majority, over half, of the people infected with the disease. Although the natural host reservoir of Ebola has yet to be found, the virus is believed to be animal-borne. A person gets Ebola from a wild animal and then is spread throughout the human population through person-to-person transmission. Healthcare workers providing aide for Ebola victims know that they have a high possibility of contracting the disease because they are exposed to infected blood and body fluids. It could take from two to twenty-one days for the Ebola Virus to show symptoms in humans, and

Ebola Virus disease (EVD) is a severe and often fatal illness in humans according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) (WHO, 2016). Although initially originating in wild animals it spreads through the human population via human to human transmission of bodily fluids with the average casualty rate being about 50% (WHO, 2016). The key to prevention and control of Ebola outbreaks is through community engagement, safe burials and good health centre prevention measures (WHO, 2015). Two countries will be examined one has experienced multiple cases of Ebola, Sierra Leone, and the other a few cases, the United States of America. The

B. These symptoms occur two – 21 days after the infection. C. The symptoms progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function, and sometimes internal and external bleeding. D. There are currently no treatments for

Ebola Virus is a serious transmitted disease by both humans and animals. The disease first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the virus received its name. Ebola Virus is a member of the negative stranded RNA viruses known as filoviruses. There are currently, five different strains of the Ebola Virus including, Zaire (EBOV), Sudan (SUDV), Bundibuguyo (BDBV), Taï Forest (TAFV) and Reston (RESTV). Each of the strains of the virus are very closely related including Reston which only effects animals. Yet, Ebola Zaire is the most highly virulent subtype, often leading to death. All of the different types of the virus are extremely dangerous and often cause death if untreated.

Both the Epi-Info-VHF and DHIS 2 databases were cleaned and prepared by epidemiology department staff at the WHO Country Office, Liberia to produce a historical dataset of unduplicated cases. Consistent with the WHO’s Ebola Situation Reports, three categories of EVD incidence were included in this study—suspected, probable, and confirmed cases. Suspected cases included any person that had experienced symptoms consistent with EVD (e.g., high fever, vomiting) or had come in contact with persons that had suffered symptoms of EVD or a dead or sick animal. Probable cases are defined as those suspected cases evaluated by a physician. Confirmed cases are those suspected cases that were confirmed positive for EVD antigen through laboratory testing. Including suspected cases, rather than those persons examined by a physician or experienced laboratory confirmation for EVD diagnosis, captures persons without access to healthcare, an important segment among those affected by the

Ebola is the global killer and communicable disease of the world with 69 % case fatality rate, whereas only Zaire strain virus has 90% case fatality rate. It attacks Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, especially the west African’s region as

Diseases have been affecting the globe for decades. In recent years there have been many infectious diseases have been occurring and spreading across society. Out of the many infectious diseases, there are two that are going to be examined. The two diseases that are going to be analyzed and reviewed are Ebola and AIDS. The two diseases have a high rate of death among people who have been infected. The right rate of death has occurred for decades. Both of these diseases are highly effective at attacking the immune system of the victims. These diseases are both infectious, but are different in several ways. In order to understand how to treat or contain these two diseases, it is informative to be educated on each disease, how it is spread, and what symptoms are prevalent.

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

Diagnosis of the Ebola virus is very hard to do. You need a specialized laboratory to perform the blood test. These laboratories are not available commercially, so basically only the government can do it. The lab is an extreme bio hazard. It is conducted under maximum containment conditions.

The Ebola virus is part of the filovirus family, and is known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The disease can sometimes cause hemorrhage from body openings, and the incubation period is 2 to 21 days. Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms. The first few symptoms are sudden and include fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat. These symptoms are then followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and impaired kidney and liver function. Laboratory tests can include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes (World Health Organization [WHO], 2016a). Ebola can be spread from person to person transmission by direct contact with bodily fluids or contaminated objects. This mode of transmission puts people in regular contact with the infected body fluids at high risk of contracting Ebola (Cole, 2015). In particular, healthcare workers caring for infected patients are at risk for this infectious disease. The nurses, patient care technicians, and anyone working in the hospital is at risk for infection by simply doing their job. Calculating intake and output, checking vital signs, or simply assessing the patient can put these workers at risk. Healthcare workers question whether or not the new Ebola treatment protocols prevent them from becoming infected.