Ebola hemorrhagic fever

Ebola hemorrhagic fever

Definition:

Ebola is a virus-type disease which the agent is called Ebola-Virus. After this virus makes his way to the body, will start a fever with bleeding which is fatal in 50 to 90% of patient at all condition. First Ebola virus had been discovered at 1976 in one of Sudan province and near Congo. This virus made his way through other African country and killed some people there. Now this virus spread outside of Africa border. This virus is named after a river in Congo.

Transmission:

Scientist believe that virus transmit through animals. This virus can mainly attack Monkeys, chimpanzees and human. This virus spotted also in other animals like bats. Humans are not a vector to Ebola virus and they get infected. The outbreak of virus and the transmission of it from animals remained undiscovered. Infected humans can transmit this virus via body liquid like blood or anything which met an infected body fluid like syringe needles or other medical equipment. The symptoms will appear between 2 to 21 days after the initial contact.

Symptoms:

The patients will visit the doctor with a sudden fever, extreme weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. Usually after a short period from the first symptoms Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function and internal and external bleeding will occur and the patient condition will be critical. After a week the symptoms would be Chest pain, shock, and then death. Some might also get blind and bleed. The symptoms are not general and not all patients have the same experience. Researchers still do not know why a minority will survive and get well.

Treatment:

There is no specific method of treatment yet and they are mainly consist of supportive actions like keeping blood pressure, keep liquid balanced and breathing aid. Several years ago doctors tried to inject survived patient blood to the infected patients. The outcome was good with a state of 7 out of 8 successfully treated. In Libya a medicine called “Zmapp” successfully treated several patients but it is not officially approved by United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Prevention:

The important rule is not to have a contact with patient. Health care staff should always wear masks, gloves and glasses. The patients should be immediately quarantined and if he/she is dead no contact should be established. WHO believes that regular control of agricultural field and disinfection of animals with Bleach (Natriumhypochlorit (NaClO)) will help to stop the disease spread. All animals which suspected to be infected should be quarantined and the dead burned. Recently American researchers developed a vaccine with a positive outcome on monkeys. This vaccine developed by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and GlaxoSmithKline. This vaccine is a two genetically modified Ebola viruses which the human testing is started in US and the UK and Africa are the next.

A lot of research are going on regarding this disease and every second is something new discovered. I tried to bring the most updated version until now. 

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