Ebola virus disease (or Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever) is a severe and often fatal disease caused by ebolavirus that was discovered in 1976.
Ebola disease is a mammalian disease and is considered to be spread to humans through fruit bats, monkeys or chimpanzees in Africa initially and then the human to human transmission has made it a world wide threat. Humans are infectious once they develop signs and symptoms of the disease.
Signs and Symptoms of Ebola disease
Ebola virus disease has a incubation period of 2-21 days. Initial symptoms include sudden onset of fever, malaise, fatigue and sore throat. As the disease progresses rash, vomiting and diarrhea sets in along with kidney and liver damage. Some cases result in internal and external bleeding, hence called hemorrhagic disease.
Diagnosing Ebola disease
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is diagnosed by a detailed history including travel history of the patient along with physical examination followed by laboratory investigations. Diagnosis is confirmed by detecting the RNA or proteins in the isolated virus.
Treatment
Sadly, no treatment specific to ebolavirus is currently approved or standardized. However supportive measures do improve the survival rate.
Outbreaks of Ebola Disease
There have been outbreaks of ebolavirus several times since its discovery. The first one being in 1976 in Sudan and Zaire, from 1995 to 2013 in Congo and Uganda at various occasions and in 2014 earlier in West Africa and then to USA and several other regions.
Prevention of Ebola disease
Since the vaccine and definitive treatment isn’t available for the virus, prevention is the only effective remedy against Ebola virus.
It’s important to understand that Ebola is not new or unique disease. Many other diseases, much deadlier are out there. So first thing to do is to “calm down”. Secondly, prevention includes steps taken to avoid other human to human transferrable diseases via fluid medium.
Steps for Ebola disease prevention are:
- Reduce the wild life interaction specially with fruit bats, monkeys and apes
- Avoid close contact with people with Ebola symptoms
- Proper and safe burial of dead due to Ebola virus.
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