Ebola Essay, Research Paper

March 1, 1996 EBOLA Imagine traveling on holiday to a foreign state and

when youcome place Y ou are dreadfully ill. Your caput injuries, you have a highfever, and you start

purging. Opportunities are that you may havecontracted the Ebola virus. Ebola was foremost

discovered in the small town of Yambuku ( 1 ) nearthe Ebola River in Zaire. Since its discove ry, there

hold beenfour eruptions of this disease. There are three known strains, ofvariations of Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

There is no known remedy for this disease ( 2 ) .Ebola has become one of the most cryptic and

feared viruses onthe face of this Earth. Ebola & # 8217 ; s foremost documented visual aspect was in Zaire in

1976. Noone knows where Ebola hemorrhagic fever comes from or what the original host is.However, sc ientists know

that adult male is non ebola & # 8217 ; s natural host ( 3 ) .The host was foremost suspected of being carried by monkeys

in theAfrican R ain woods ( 4 ) , but in one instance the monkeys at a holdingfacility broke out and had to

be killed. In the chase of a remedy and an beginning, there have beenseveral squads of scientists

whose top precedence is to happen theviruses origin ( 5 ) . The squads have trekked through the rain forests

of Africa to roll uping different species of animate beings, bugs, and works life. Bugs are besides coll ected

from the hospitalsand from the environing huts of the small towns. So far 36,000specimens have

been collected. Once they have been gathered, thespecimens are put into liquid N and

flown back to theUnited States, where they are studied at T he Centers for DiseaseControl in

Atlanta Georgia and the Army Medical Research Instituteof Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick

Md. , ( 6 ) . Research workers havediscovered the beginning of human infection for all degree fourorganisms

except Ebola hemorrhagic fever ( 7 ) . This means that all organisns thatcause deathly viruses have been contained and

studied, and have hadantibodies created to guard of the illn esses that are caused. Although

Ebola is a enigma to worlds, the virus isrelatively difficult to catch and it kills rapidly, cubic decimeter essening

thechance victims will infect others. It is transmitted by contactwith bodily fluids like blood, puke

and seeds or contaminatedsyringes and is non known to be passed along through

casualcontact ( 8 ) . When the first eruption of Ebola hemorrhagic fever occur ruddy, it was in 1976 inZaire and in

Soudan at the same clip. There were 318 casesreported in Zaire and 240 of those instances prove vitamin D

to be fatal. InSudan, there were 284 instances and 134 of those instances proved to befatal. In 1979,

there was another little epidemic in the sameregion of Sudan. In 1989 there was a jailbreak in

Reston Virginia, at a monkey keeping installation, that killed ov er 400 monkeys thathad been shipped

from the Phillines. This strand nevertheless, is onlylethal to monkeys and id non a menace to

worlds ( 9 ) . In 1995, therewas an eruption in Kikwit Zaire that claimed 233 lives. At least7 people

survived that outbreak becauses of a new breakthroughthat is a possible solution to the loss of

lives that are sufferedin a eruption. Blood from one Sur viving patient can be transfusedto a

individual of the same blood type to perchance salvage the personslife. Such was the instance in 199 5 ( 10 ) .

Scientists were able tofind who the first individual to contract the virus was in 1995. Theman & # 8217 ; s name

was Gaspard Menga. Menga infected his household, and hisfamily infected others ( 11 ) . Menga is

known as the index patient.The ground it is so import emmet to hold the index patient is thatthis manner

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they can follow the patients motions and seek to happen theorigin of the virus. S cientists are now

reasoning that if therewasn & # 8217 ; t so much intervention with the rain forests that therewouldn & # 8217 ; t be new

diseases emerging all the clip ( 12 ) The most recent eruption happened in January of 1996 in

asmall small town in inland Zaire. Two child ren were playing when thecame upon a dead Pan troglodytes

and they took it back to the villagewhere the villagers celebrated for Thursday vitamin E happening of such a

wonderfulthing. The ground this was so celebrated was because meat is rarein that small town.

Anyone who helped clean or cook the animalbecame ailment with the deathly Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus. The concluding

decease count was16 people. Villagers have been warned non to eat any animate beings thatthey find

already dead and to be careful non to eat any sickanimals that they may meet. Scientists

now believe that monkeys are non the original hostbecause they seem to merely every bit susceptible to the

disease as humans.Scientists are trusting that they will do some substantialdiscoveries with this

eruption. ( 13 ) Scientists do cognize t hat Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a strand of sevenproteins ( 14 ) that belongs to a

household of viruses calledfilovirusus. The virus consists of a she ll of proteinssurrounding familial

stuff. The virus attaches itself to a hostcell, and changes the chemicals makeup to suit its ain

so that itcan reproduce ( 15 ) . Ebola is a haemorrhagic virus that has a short incubationperiod of

approximately two yearss to two hebdomads ( 16 ) . It causes high febrility, icinesss, internal and external hemorrhage,

emesis, the eyes turnred and the tegument becomes b lotchy and contusions appear. The surfaceveins

and arterias erode. Organs liquify and blood flows fromevery opening in the organic structure including the

eyes and ears ( 17 ) . Thisis followed by a painful decease that normally occurs within threeweeks ( 18 ) .

There are three known strains of The virus. Ebola Zaire, Ebola hemorrhagic fever Sudan, and ebola Reston. Ebola

Zaire is the most deadly ofthe three field-grade officer llowed by ebola Sudan and so ebola Reston. EbolaReston

is the least disquieted about because it has non proved to behostile to worlds. The inquiry of

whether or non this virus could becomeairborne has struck fright in many. Scientists say that it

isunlikely that it will go airborne, because it is killed byultraviolet beams within seconds. The

merely manner that it couldsu rvive is if it mutated to go immune to ultraviolet beams. At this point,

a individual is more likely to contract HIV thanit is to contract the Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus, although it takes 10s

old ages toaffect a individual the manner Ebola hemorrhagic fever does in 10 yearss. Even tho ugh Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a really

cryptic and feared disease, itis in the procedure of going more understood. It can destruct

anentire degree Celsius ity in a affair of hebdomads, and could pass over out an entirenation if it of all time became airborne,

but it is a really difficultdisease to contract so the united provinces is likely safe from anynear

future epidemics. On the other manus many 3rd worldcountries cou ld have serious jobs if

there is an outbreak dueto unsanitaryliving and medical conditions. The infirmaries and

medicalper sonnel reuse acerate leafs that have been infected and they don & # 8217 ; t uselatex or any other sort

of baseball mitts which can be a cause of wides pread illness. Everyone hopes that diseases like Ebola hemorrhagic fever

will notget out of control before a remedy can be found. Such hopes see munreasonable due to the

installations available in some countries of theworld. lable in some countries of theworld.