'Ebola Virus' What you should Know about it

Doctors Without Borders staff members carry the body of a person killed by Ebola

I was actually surprised yesterday when a cute young handsome guy asked me what an Ebola Virus Disease is, saying he has never heard of that before. I really was surprised because it baffled me that a young guy in this present dispensation with all the tech (at least a Smartphone) in his hands has not heard or mistakenly come across the news of this deadly virus that has been ravaging West African countries for months now. Read More

Well, I still find him commendable because he didn't know but accepted that he didn't and asked questions so he could know. If you're one of such people, or probably, you know but not really informed, I'd like to help out and only ask that you keep your eyes glued on your screen making sure you read through this post.

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) or Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) is the human disease caused by the ebola virus. This Virus formerly called Zaire ebolavirus, or EBOV is a virological taxon species included in the genus Ebolavirus, family Filoviridae, members of this family are called Filovirus. It is the most dangerous of the six species of Ebola viruses of the Ebolavirus genus which are the causative agents of Ebola virus disease causing an extremely severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates. The name Zaire ebolavirus is derived from Zaire (the country in which the Ebola virus was first discovered) and the taxonomic suffix ebolavirus (which denotes an ebolavirus species). Let me not bore you with the biological connections and explanations concerning the nature, names and all the stuffs that concern this virus. Let's just talk about the disease itself because that's what concerns the layman who needs to protect himself and stay clear from being contaminated.

This photo provided by the CDC shows an Ebola virus.

This disease which I call a bigger and faster brother to Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) was first uncovered in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo and got the name 'Ebola' which was derived from the Ebola River - a river that was at first thought to be in close proximity to the area in Democratic Republic of Congo, previously called Zaire, where the first recorded Ebola virus disease outbreak occurred. Yes! I called it big and faster brother to HIV because,

1) They are both caused by a virus.

2) They both kill a very high percentage of their victims.

3) They are both transmitted from person to person via body fluids. And Finally,

4) They are both believed to have entered into the human population through animals with Ebola dominant in bats. It is faster because it kills faster and is easily contacted unlike HIV.

An Ebola Patient under treatment

Ebola Virus Disease for sometime has surfaced at several periods but was contained although in each of the cases kills 90% of its victims. Today, this disease has surfaced again in the West African Region with about 700 deaths recorded so far. The countries affected so far are Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia with Uganda and Nigeria freshly added to the list. The Nigerian case (the only case currently) involved the victim Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian finance ministry aged in his 40s. He collapsed on arrival at Lagos airport on July 20 and was put in isolation at The First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, (one of the most crowded parts of city of Lagos) and died on Friday last week. Currently, no other case has been reported in Nigeria but authorities have quarantined the private hospital which hosted this man. "The private hospital was demobilized (evacuated) and the primary source of infection eliminated. The decontamination process in all the affected areas has commenced," Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris told a news conference. Some hospital staff that was in close contact with the victim has been isolated and the hospital shut for a week with all staff closely monitored, Idris added. Also, authorities are monitoring a total of 59 people who were in contact with Sawyer, including airport contacts, the Lagos state health ministry said. But the airline he flew in with has yet to provide a passenger list for the flights he used, it added. 

So let's just hope these ones didn't reach their several destinations across the country carrying the virus.

You might wanna ask, how do I know who has this virus and can I avoid being contaminated. The answer is YES! you could avoid it if you understand how it's being transmitted and stay clear from such scenarios.

First, a person infected with this death messenger exhibits the symptoms after 2 to 25 days of contamination with 13 days on the average. The symptoms includes; sudden onset of an influenza-like stage characterized by general malaise, fever with chills, sore throat, severe headache, weakness, joint pain, muscle pain, and chest pain. The central nervous system (CNS) is also affected judging from the development of severe headaches, agitation, confusion, fatigue, seizures, and sometimes coma.

Cutaneous (Outer Skin) presentation may include: maculopapular rash, petechiae, purpura, ecchymoses, and hematomas. Symptoms can also be seen as the patients bleed from open areas of the skin and also likely to have internal bleeding. However, contrary to popular belief, hemorrhage (bleeding) is not the cause of death (total blood loss is low except during labor). Instead, death occurs due to multiple organ dysfunction syndromes (MODS) due to fluid redistribution, hypotension, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and focal tissue necroses.

Ebola Virus is easily contaminated when an infected person exchanges any of the body fluids with an uncontaminated person. The contamination is so easy that it can be gotten just by mere touching of hands, via sweat, using same bed sheets, touching something already touched by an infected person, touching or eating of contaminated bush meats, touching of dead body of a deceased person due to the disease. And currently, the disease has no cure.

So pal, you might wanna consider how you shake hands especially with strangers hence forth, what you eat and I suggest you desist from eating bush meats for the meantime unless you belong to the few group of people who carry antibodies against this virus. Actually some of these guys are found in Gabon. A research carried out in Gabon by a multidisciplinary team showed that these individuals had indeed developed specific antibodies against Ebola. In vitro tests subsequently brought evidence of a significant rise in the number of T8 lymphocytes (white blood cells which destroy infected cells) producing cytokine IFN-g, a substance involved in the immune system. This immune memory specifically concerning the Ebola virus is similar to that generated by vaccines whose effectiveness against Ebola in animals has been shown in previous studies. This similarity prompts the researchers to wonder if these people are naturally protected against new infection. The high immunity rates are the biological proof that populations have been in contact with the Ebola virus. In order to develop antibodies, these healthy carriers must have been exposed to the virus in the past although they report that they have never suffered from the disease or in any case live in a non epidemic area.

I believe by now that you must have gotten the knowledge of what we are talking about. I'd also appreciate your comments, questions and additions.

Thanks for your reading patience.

Nedez