Ebola Virus Disease
Ebola virus disease is an acute, extreme, and deadly sickness in humans. Ebola virus is an EVD pathogen primarily found in West Africa. The most common Ebola virus belongs to the Zaire ebolavirus species, which has a mortality rate of up to 90%. Africa is the indigenous region where monkeys are carriers of the virus, although cases have been introduced into other continents (Lange et al., 1977). The disease was first reported in Equatorial Africa in 1976. This outbreak was catastrophic with 400 cases and 220 deaths for an 88 percent case-fatality ratio. In Liberia, Guinea, and Sierre Leone, 30,165 EVD cases and close to 12,000 deaths have been recorded. The effect on the world, and particularly West Africa, is significant.
The virus could be transmitted from the host animals to humans through the consumption of raw or undercooked meat. The main path of transmission of the virus in human beings is through direct contact. Close contact with a patient’s body fluids, or living in contaminated environments, dramatically increases the risk of infection. Although EVD infections are rampant in Africa, it may affect individuals of any race or age group. (Bagcchi, 2014). Since most Ebola infection symptoms are not unique to thttps://essaygroom.com/annotated-bibliography-on-biology/he disease, it is essential to rule out more common diseases first, particularly during the initial stages of infection when the diagnosis is difficult. Laboratory examinations of blood samples can help detect the Ebola virus disease.
West African Nations that had never encountered an Ebola epidemic were not prepared from early detection of cases to orchestration of a suitable response to this new and unpredictable disease. Also, clinicians had never encountered any Ebola cases, and no hospital had a specimen of a patient diagnosed. For most governments in this region, the social and economic disruption that followed this disease outbreak was unfamiliar. Populations were unable to grasp what had struck them and why (Kucharski & Piot, 2014). So, in a new context, Ebola was able to spread invisibly rapidly. Because of these and other factors, the Ebola virus in West Africa behaved differently from Equatorial Africa, challenging several previous assumptions.
Proper control of outbreaks is based on implementing a package of interventions. CDC’s role in surveillance, contact tracing, and case management, provision of laboratory services, healthy burials, and social mobilization would be critical in identifying the disease early. Another successful way to minimize human transmission would have been to conduct awareness campaigns on the possible risk factors for Ebola infection and preventive measures like vaccination (Oleribe et al., 2015). Agencies such as the World Health Organization would have proclaimed PHEIC status earlier so that money could be quickly mobilized from high-income countries such as the United States and Europe, which would have allowed the WHO to respond more rapidly to and increase the agency’s capacity to respond to health emergencies.
References
Bagcchi, S. (2014). Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 14(5), 375. doi: 10.1016/s1473-3099(14)70034-9
Kucharski, A., & Piot, P. (2014). Containing Ebola virus infection in West Africa. Eurosurveillance, 19(36), 20899. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.es2014.19.36.20899
Lange, K., Johnson, J., Webb, P., & Murphy, F. (1977). Isolation and Partial Characterisation of a New Virus Causing Acute Hæmorrhagic Fever in Zaire. The Lancet, 309(8011), 569-571. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(77)92000-1
Oleribe, O., Salako, B., Ka, M., Akpalu, A., McConnochie, M., Foster, M., & Taylor-Robinson, S. (2015). Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa: lessons learned and issues arising from West African countries. Clinical Medicine, 15(1), 54-57. doi: 10.7861/clinmedicine.15-1-54