The Ebola Virus

At some point in your life you may have a disease.It may be relatively  harmless  or it may be quite serious.Disease is a sickness of the body or mind.There are thousands of diseases that can strike almost every part of the body.Some diseases are chronic (lasting a long time);while others are called acute,occuring in short,sharp attacks.There are many different causes of disease.Harmful micro organisms can invade the body  and cause infectious disease.Infectious diseases are the only ones that can spread from person to person.Most are micro scopic organisms called bacteria and viruses that invade the body.Poor living conditions can also cause disease.Some diseases occur at birth.:others may be passed from parent to child.The reasons for some diseases are unclear,as a result,scientist are constantly working to understand the causes of diseases and find possible cures.

       Africa was long  characterized as the “dark continent,”impentrable,disease ridden,and dangerous.To many Europeans,Africans personified suffering,and their enviroment seemed a housefull of fever and affliction.Europeans had good reason to connect Africa with disease.For centuries,their attempts to penetrate the coast of the continent has been effectivly frustrated by disease,against which they had little or no resistance.With high mortality rates,it is no surprise that Europeans called Africans “the white mans grave,”and believed that Africa was more disease ridden than other parts of the world.In fact many people continue to think that Tropical Africa has a well deserved reputation  as a breeding ground for dozens of diseases.

    “Africa is a sick continent,full of sick and....starving people.”(Prins.1989)This view has been proved by scientific speculation concerning the appearance of so - called exotic diseases like Ebola,Marburg,and Lassa fevers.Recent technological advances espeically in electron microscopy,molecular biology,genetics,and immunology  have scientists making important new discoveries that is hoped to -lead to lead to cures for viral infections to equal those available for bacterial,fungai,and parasital infection.However the identification of Africa as the home of “exotic new diseases” has reinforced the widespread views of that continent as a major source of disease causing germs.

      Textbooks on tropical diseases in Africa are well out of date.With the recognition of new and deadly viral infections,the classical descriptions of major diseases such as Malaria and Yellow Fever must be thoroughly revised.After the appearance of the Marburg virus in 1967 and the Lassa virus in 1969,the Ebola virus in 1976 provoked a violent disturbance.The Ebola story beganwith almost contemporaneous outbreaks of a deadly infection in Maridi region of southern Sudan and in the Bumba Zone of the equator region of North Central Zaire,neighboring on the Sudan,and the towns on the couse of the Ebola river.The Ebola virus is responsible for severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever.The Ebola virus is named after the river in Zaire.The epidemic of the Ebola virus emerged in June 1976,with an index case in Nzara,Southern Sudan,among workers in a cotton factory.A patient went to a large hospital in Maridi,where the disease spread rapidly among  the patients and staff.

      The epidemic  ran it’s path by Nov.1976.There were 148 deaths in 284 detected cases (52% mortality).In 1979 a further outbreak occured in Southern Sudan.The epidemic in Zaire was traced to an index case on September 1,1976.A total of  318 cases occured with 288 deaths (90.5% mortality).Several patients and members of the hospital staff,physicians,and attendants died also.The epidemic had terminated by Nov.5,1976.Fatalities occured in a hospital in Kinshasa in the cases,of three nurses who had been transfered from the infected area,and it became clear,that the passage of the virus from human to human had occured through the contamination of needles and suringes.Ebola can be transmitted  through contact with instant blood,semen,body fluids,and possibly respiratory secretions.The virus has been detected in the organs of patients with recovery from the fever.Unsanitary conditions and lack of adequate medical supplies has been a factor in the spread of disease.Epidemiologist have been active in trying to trace the origins of the Ebola virus and the distribution of the infection throughout Africa,locate the host other than humans,as well as learn methods of transmissions to humans and the ways the virus is maintained and bred in nature.

      The Ebola virus seems to have a window period of 4 to 16 days,after which time the impact is unbearable.The onset is sudden and harsh.The patient developes fever,severe head and muscle ashes and loss of appetite.The next stage involves diseminated intravascular coagulation a condition characterized by both blood and hemorrhaging.The clots usually form in vital internal organs such as the liver,spleen,brain,forcing capillaries to bleed into surrounding tissue.Other symptons include nausea,vomiting,and diarrhea with blood  and mucus,conjunctivitis,and sore throat soon follow.A rash appers on the trunk and quickly covers the rest of the body.The patient is than harrassed by spontaneaous bleeding from all body outlets,coupled with shock and kidney failure and often death within 8 to 17 days.

          The epidemics in Sudan and Zaire terminated as abruptly as they started.However,in 1979 another hospital outbreak occured in Tandala,Zaire,300 KM distance from the original Bumba outbreak.Through the 1980’s,no further outbreaks have been reported in Sudan,Zaire or elsewhere in Africa.self-satisfaction was shattered in the United States and internationally in early November 1989 when an epidemic,confirmed to be caused by the Ebola virus,burst in a shipment of 100 Macaca cynomalyus monkey originating in the Phillipines and shipped to a laboratory in Virginia.Sixty of the one hundred monkeys died. A devastating outbreak among humans took place again in 1795 in Kirkwit.500km east of Kinshasa,Zaire;the disease claimed 244 patients out of 315 reported cases.It is interesting to note that the epidemic ended within a few months,as suddenly as it began;this puzzled scientist,who are still unaware of the causes and nature of this so called hot virus.Despite the dreadful speed with which the disease killed it’s victims,scientists were happy that they contained it with relatively small number of fatalities.Recently obtained historical documentation suggests the possibility that the Athenian plague at the beginning of the Peloponneian War around 430 b.c. should be attributed to the Ebola virus.

   The Ebola virus is classified as a ribonucleic acid virus and is closely related to the Marburg virus,first discovered in 1967.The Marburg and Ebola viruses make up only two members of the Filoviridae family,which was first established in 1987.Electron microscope studies show the Ebola virus as long filaments,650 to 14000 nanometers in length,that are often either branched or intertwined.It is believed that once in the body, the virus produces proteins that suppress the organisms immune system.This allows it to reproduce.There appears to be no known or standard treatment for Ebola fever.No chemotherapeutic or immunization strategies are available,and no antiviral drug has been shown to provide positive results.Plasmapheris with plasma from recovered patients has been tried as treatment.Interpretation of limited trials indicates little hope of an effective therapy.No drugs have been effective.A possible vaccine remains a dream.It should be emphasized that most of the Ebola patients who came to a clinic or a hospital had had several days of treatment with an antimalarial drug,often followed by typhoid treatment or antibiotics of whatever kind available.There is no known treatment for Ebola fever.

    The puzzling characteristics of the Ebola virus are the location of it’s primary natural resovoir,it’s sudden explosion and the unknown reason for it’s quick end and the unusual discovery of the virus in the organs of people who have survived it.In the past,experimental work on the virus has been slow because of it’s high pathogenecity.In 1995 the World Health Organization investigators and epidemiologist captured about three thousand birds,rodents,and other animals and insects that are suspected of spreading the disease,in order to investigate the source of the virus.However,the results,were dim and inconclusive.The main facts about the disease are still a mystery,with the exception of the established tie between primates and Ebola virus infection in humans.

      This conclusion was reached after the fatal infection of a french researcher in Ivory Coast who performed an autopsy on a chimpanzee that had died from a disease with the same symptons as the Ebola fever.Yet the human outbreaks in Zaire and Sudan have not been traced to monkeys.As long as the -perplexing questions linger,the disease should be contained,with specific emphasis on the improvement of sanitary conditions and the control of body fluids contact.