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Ebola Virus or Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever is one of the most deadly viruses known to mankind. The strength and amount of time it lasts varies with different strains, but Ebola kills 50 to 90 % of the people it infects. As of July 1, 1995, 573 deaths have been reported due the disease. It was first identified in 1975 in Zaire, when a small village was almost entirely whipped out and 340 people ended up dead.
Ebola is a member of a group of RNAviruses called Filoviruses. There are three known strains of it; Zaire, Reston, Sudan, and Tai. Reston is a disease that effects monkeys, not humans, while Tai is found in Chimpanzees, and although humans can catch it, it is very hard for us to contract it. The strains Zaire and Sudan are the ones that are harmful to humans, and there is no known effective treatment for it. The other disturbing fact about this disease is that the carrier ofthe Zaire or Sudan strains are not known.
Ebola is spread through close bodily contact or transfer of fluids or blood. Often, inthe past family members or nurses and doctors who were caring for those who had the virus were infected. The carrier of the disease is not known and although the organisms who are infected with, and pass on the Reston and Tai strains, no organisms that could be carriers of this virus have been discovered. However, over 3, 00 birds and animals have been tested for Ebola, along with almost 10, 000 insects, none of which have had the virus. They are still testing for organisms that have the disease, so someday the carrier may be discovered.
Once Ebola is inside of a cell, it transcribes it s RNA, and replicates in the cytoplasm of the cell. The host cell then splits open and releases many more viruses intothe organism. The fear of many people is that someone infected with Ebola would travel somewhere and spread the disease to a world wide level. The fast time Symptoms begin 4 - 16 days after the virus has been contracted, and start out millie a fever and then get very severe. The first symptoms include weakness, muscle pain, fever, and headache. Then, as the disease gets more severe, symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, internal and external bleeding, and limited kidney and liver functions.
approximately 75 % of the people infected with Ebola have died, so the odds are that if one infected, they will die. Someone with Ebola would probably die within eight to 16 days, and if they don t the chances are that the virus has left and they will live. Stopping the spread of it once an outbreak is discovered should be our prime concern. In third world countries in Africa where the virus has spread before, medical techniques are very bad, and this enables the virus to spread very easily among people who are trying to help the infected person. Therefore some possibilities of treatments, but none have actually been tested on humans. Some proposed treatments and vaccines have been tested on animals, and ideas have come up for things that might work, but nothing has actually seemed to work on humans.
If people were able to understand the virus, it would be much easier to look forces. Ebola has a high mutation rate, so often samples of the virus relatively close together are very different. However, the strains do stay relatively constant, so it is possible that Ebola has existed for a long time. One possibility that has arisen is steroids. A mango had the virus, and it was not identified as Ebola was given steroids, and seemed to recover very well, and lived. Russian scientists have successfully produced Ebola immune goats and sheep using an antibody called immunoglobulin G, that was used with a process of giving them dead Zaire Ebola virus, then giving them the live virus, and when the have the virus, bleeding them out for antiserum.
This process is very expensive, and has not been tested on humans, so it is not likely that a vaccine for Ebola will be produced in the near future. Many antibodies have been used to treat the symptoms of Ebola, and maybe help people fight through the infection, but none have been discovered that work exceptionally well. A possible homeopathic remedy has been proposed which has been used to effectively treat other viruses with similar symptoms. It is Crotalus Horridus, or Timber Rattler venom. Although scientists have been studying Ebola for over 20 years, they still know relatively little about it, and have no cure. Most of the outbreaks of Ebola have been in Africa although a few have been uncovered elsewhere.
Since the discovery of Ebola in 1975, there have been five major outbreaks where over 50 people have been infected. Many people in the US ask the question: will it ever get here? The answer is that it already has; but only the Reston strain which only infects monkeys. The scary part about these five or so outbreaks in the US istat one of them was found in a population of monkeys that was not just brought in from overseas and had no contact with monkeys from far away.
Scientists have done much research on this strand, and have concluded that it is possible for it to become airborne, and the other strands may be able to become airborne too. The only place where Ebola Zaire or Sudan is known to have been contracted from that was not from the continent of Africa is Sweden. There have been two confirmed cases of the disease there, and the residents of one town recall that there had been several more cases like this one before. However, in this area the disease has not spread between people nearly as much as it has Africa in the past. There are 573 deaths that are known to have been caused by Ebola, and almost 700 confirmed cases of it. This does not mean that this is all the cases by any means, because before 1975 the virus probably existed, and probably there have been many other cases like the many in Africa where one or just a few people are infected.
The Reston and Tai strains have been uncovered in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe. Reston seems to spread more quickly because the monkeys have real way to protect themselves from it. Scientifically, the Ebola virus has only been around since 1975, but the odds are that has been around for much longer than that. Scientists believe that Ebola probably has avery small niche in which it lives with it s carriers, and therefore is only passed on to other organisms rarely. Some historians believe that Ebola or a similar filo virus may have been what was behind the Plague of Athens that killed 300, 000 people in 425 - 430 BC. The symptoms of this disease written down by several different people from that time are very similar to those experienced by those with Ebola.
Tribal stories in Africa and stories of before 1975 tell of a virus that fits the description of Ebola, however, in the last 100 years or, no large outbreaks of an Ebola like disease were recalled. The most recent outbreak was in Gabon in February 1996, and it killed 13. There is no cure for Ebola, so until someone discovers the carrier of this deadly virus, we will have to just watch out and try to contain any outbreaks that take place. 311
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