In the shadow of a Holocaust : The New disease that makes AIDS look like a cold.
No one knows where it come from .No one knows where it will turn up next. All that scientists do know is that the mystery virus which first made its appearance on the Zaire Sudan border in 1976 is so lethal and infections that it has the potential to become the Black death of the modern world.
EBOLA , as a virus is known , kills nine out of ten peoples whom it infects , wreaking devastation on the body of the victim. It starts with the a HEADACHE and FEVER swiftly moves on to uncontrollable INTERNAL BLEEDING.
Within days, organs turn to jelly -like pulp , which patients expel through every orifice eventually dying in massive pool of blood.
So far the source of Ebola is unknown. Although it has been found in monkeys , the actual reservoirs may be insects , bats or other creatures of its inhospitable jungle home —thought to be somewhere in Africa.
The major concern is that jet – age travel means that just one infected person or animal could trigger an epidemic anywhere . This was demonstrated in 1989 , when a strain was discovered in monkeys imported from Philippines fro research in the USA —to the laboratory just 10 miles (16 km ) from the White House. Extreme measures had to be taken to control the risk of outbreak.
Being a virus , Ebola is extremely difficult to treat medically . Antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections and because viruses actually take over the cells of their victims , it is hard to stop the virus without affecting the other healthy cells at the same time . The usual method is to develop a vaccine which stimulates the body’s own immune system to fight the infection .
However ,vaccines take time to develop , and the ability of viruses to mutate means that new strains can emerge and make any previous vaccinations ineffective. No vaccine exist for Ebola , but it has already proved cunning in its ability to mutate . It is ferocious , too . It does in ten days what it takes AIDS ten years to do —in scientific term a ” bio hazard level four” two level above HIV.
Out of the ‘Hot zone ‘: Like AIDS , Ebola is thought to come from central Africa , and it is no coincidence that they have emerged from the same ‘Hot Zone’ .The World Health organisation (WHO) fears that the new settlement of jungle areas , combined with rapid population growth and increased mobility , may be creating the ideal conditions for an explosion of unfamiliar disease.
DR Ryder , Infectious disease specialist at Yale University , says of Ebola :
‘It si almost as if the virus is saying to man ,I ll leave you alone if you leave me alone , but as soon as you step on my turf I am going to get you ‘.
A disaster averted :The most recent outbreak , in 1995 was centered on the Zairian city of kikwit , and at first seemed likely to fulfill all the doomsters prophecies . Terror spread so fast among the population of 400 000 that people avoided physical contact with each other and the dead were left where they fell. However WHO teams were quickly flown in with experts from the American Center for disease control (CDC) , who wore chemical warfare suits to protect themselves . By imposing quarantine regulations and strict sanitary measures , the experts were able to keep the death toll down.The fatalities strictly attributable to Ebola were given as 79 people.
Each was a horrific death but the relatively low numbers came as a surprise.One reason is that the known strains of Ebola appear to spread through body fluids but not through the air. Another is connected with the speed of death. The incubation period can be 21 days , but averages about seven to ten and can be as little as two. Basically , Ebola can kill so quickly that the victim does not have time to spread the virus.
Once again after 19 years ,Ebola virus outbreak happen in Nigeria , Liberia in last week of July 2014 .The Black death has arrived again and the scientist of the world is still working on this virus .
Ebola had vanished as quickly as mysteriously as it had arrived . Now only one question remains : How long will it be before it make its next appearance ?
