Hello,
Just what is ebola? "Ebola virus disease (EVD) or Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) is the human disease caused by the Ebola virus. Symptoms typically start two days to three weeks after contracting the virus, with a fever, sore throat, muscle pains, and headaches. Typically nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea follow, along with decreased functioning of the liver and kidneys. At this point, some people begin to have problems with bleeding." (Thanks to wikipedia.org. The original source is the World Health Organization Fact Sheet March, 2014.)
How does one get the Ebola disease? "The disease may be acquired upon contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected animal (commonly monkeys or fruit bats). It is not naturally transmitted through the air.[2] Fruit bats are believed to carry and spread the virus without being affected. Once human infection occurs, the disease may spread between people as well. Male survivors may be able to transmit the disease via semen for nearly two months."
How to prevent Ebola: "Prevention includes decreasing the spread of disease from infected monkeys and pigs to humans. This may be done by checking such animals for infection and killing and properly disposing of the bodies if the disease is discovered. Properly cooking meat and wearing protective clothing when handling meat may also be helpful, as is wearing protective clothing and washing hands when around a person with the disease. Samples of bodily fluids and tissues from people with the disease should be handled with special caution.[1]"
Vaccines for Ebola: None currently available for humans, although scientists and doctors are working on it.
Again thanks to the Wikipedia page about the Ebola virus for all the above information. My first exposure to Ebola, ahem, was Richard Preston's excellent book "The Hot Zone". A true life story written to be as intense and as well as the best fiction. It reads like a Michael Crichton novel, at least one of his mid career novels. It's easily one of the best books I've ever read. Appropriately enough Stephen King blurbed the book when it came out. But this book is scarier than almost any of King's fiction because Ebola is something that can happen.
I remember reading this book somewhere in the mid 90's and it absolutely scaring the crap out of me. This disease that came out of Africa had been just lying in wait for mankind. Some of the scariest parts of the book were the actual descriptions of what the disease can do it's human hosts. It's not pretty, is very painful and miserable. The disease also kills a high percentage of those that get it. I wasn't able to find an exact mortality rate, but it's at least 50%.
At the end of the book Preston warns that Ebola will be back.
Indeed in February, 2014 Ebola came back, when it appeared in Guinea. (It since has appeared also in Sierra Leone and Liberia.) There have been many cases reported and hundreds of deaths so far from this outbreak. "On July 31 2014, WHO reports the death toll has reached 826 from 1440 cases." (Thanks again to the Wikipedia Ebola page and abcnews.com.)
An American medical provider, Kent Brantly, was exposed while caring for people in the infected region of Liberia. Brantly has been given an experimental serum and his condition is "improving". (Thanks to abcnews.com.) However the doctor Brantly was with at the time, Nancy Writebol, hasn't seemed to have come down with Ebola. I know there are so many factors that can't be controlled for, but I think this would be a good chance to compare Brantly and Writebol's situation. Let's see if it can be figured out about why Brantly has Ebola but Writebol doesn't. Writebol is being treated, but doesn't seem to be suffering at the same level as Brantly.
Every time I see a story like this, I'm again so grateful that I live in the greatest country in the world, the United States of America. I'm sure Brantly feels the same way as he's being cared for here in the USA. He currently is at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Although Ebola has found it's way into America an outbreak is highly unlikely.
themusicaddict
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