Since it was first discovered in 1976, strains of the
Ebola virus have wreaked havoc throughout
central Africa, particularly in the Congo area. But
previous incidents have only affected a fraction of
the people struck down by the outbreak of 2014,
which has infected over 1,700 people and killed
more than 900. Perhaps the most frightening
thing about Ebola, other than its staggering
mortality rate, is how very little we know about it.
102014 Outbreak
As of August 6, 2014, the World Health
Organization claimed that 932 people had died of
Ebola so far in the summer of 2014. In a world of
billions, this number may seem statistically
insignificant, but it is important to realize that tiny
rural communities have been hit especially hard.
On August 5, a nurse in Lagos was the first
Nigerian to die of the virus. This is particularly
horrifying, as Lagos is the most populous city in
Africa, densely packed with an estimated 21
million citizens. Nigeria is scrambling to contain
the plague as new cases pop up left and right, but
how successful they will be and how many will
die remains unknown.
The 2014 outbreak seems to have spread to
Guinea, with dozens of cases reported by the
Ministry of Health by March 24, 2014. Within a
span of months, it managed to cross borders,
taking hold in the neighboring nations of Sierra
Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast, leading the
American CDC to issue a travel advisory against
visiting afflicted countries.
9Arrival In America
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When news of the 2014 Ebola outbreak first
broke, those in the West listened warily but
without great concern. After all, Ebola had sprung
up intermittently for over 30 years without
causing significant damage. But when it was
announced that an infected American, Dr. Kent
Brantly, would be transported back to the United
States, panic ensued. Recognizing a juicy story,
the media only made matters worse.
The 33-year-old doctor was transported from
Liberia via air ambulance, arriving in the US on
August 2, 2014. He was brought to Emory
University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, which is
outfitted with a sophisticated biocontainment
patient care unit replete with ultraviolet lights and
air filtration systems.
If this does not assuage your fears, experts claim
that even if Ebola somehow did make its way out
of the hospital and take root in the general
population, its impact would be quite minimal.
According to epidemiologist Ian Lipkin of
Columbia University, “Sustained outbreaks would
not occur in the US because cultural factors in the
developing world that spread Ebola—such as
intimate contact while family and friends are
caring for the sick and during the preparation of
bodies for burial—aren’t common in the
developed world. Health authorities would also
rapidly identify and isolate infected individuals.”
8Discovery
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The first recorded outbreaks of Ebola occurred
around the same time in 1976 in Zaire (now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan.
When people began dying of a mystery ailment,
William Close, the personal physician of Zaire
President Mobutu Sese Seko, sent for a team of
experts from Belgium’s Institute of Tropical
Medicine. Their research focused on the village of
Yambuku, where the first known case infected
Mabalo Lokela, the headmaster of the village
school, and quickly spread to other people in the
village. The Belgian team decided to call the virus
“Ebola” after the nearby Ebola River rather than
stigmatize Yambuku.
Of course, it is likely that Ebola has infected people
much further in the past. Some historians claim
that Ebola was responsible for the Plague of
Athens, which struck the Mediterranean during
the Peloponnesian War in 430 B.C. According to
the historian Thucydides, who himself contracted
the disease but survived, the plague came to the
sea-faring Athenian people from Africa. Evidence
is circumstantial, but descriptions of the disease—
including its prevalence among caregivers and
symptoms like bleeding—do indicate that Ebola
may have been the culprit.
7Porton Down Lab Accident
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Photo credit: Andy Dolman
Conspiracy theorists love to spin tall tales of
secret government research laboratories where
deadly biological agents are cultivated and
monsters are bred, but unlike many crackpot
theories, this one contains a grain of truth. One
such facility is the Centre for Applied Microbiology
Research at Porton Down in England, where
Ebola research is carried out. The level-four safety
category laboratory is outfitted with a shower
system to sterilize researchers before they exit
and bulletproof glass to ensure the virus is kept
securely under wraps. Should an accident
happen, such as a tear in a suit or glove, an alarm
will sound.
These protocols have been in place for decades,
but when Ebola was first making the rounds in
1976, no one was sure exactly what dangers the
virus posed. One researcher was accidentally
infected at Porton Down on November 5, 1976
when he accidentally pricked his thumb with a
syringe while working with laboratory animals.
He became ill days later, providing the scientific
world with his bodily fluids and much of their
initial data about the virus. Luckily, the man
survived.
6Sexual Transmission
Funny couple in bed
The first 7–10 days after they begin showing
symptoms is critical to the survival of Ebola
patients. This is when most Ebola victims die, but
if the body manufactures enough antibodies to
fight off the virus, recovery is possible. Even after
a clean blood test, though, Ebola can linger in
strange ways, such as in the breast milk of
lactating women. It also stays in semen for up to
three months, as blood-borne antibodies don’t
reach the testicles, so men who recover from
Ebola are told to practice safe sex with condoms.
Seminal fluid taken from the researcher from
Porton Down contained the virus 61 days after
his recovery.
Experts state that likelihood of Ebola spreading
through sexual contact is minimal, particularly
because those with high viral loads are in no
condition to be amorous. A more likely, if
infinitely more morbid, route of transmission is
the African custom of washing corpses before
burial. While Ebola thrives in living bodies, the
virus has been found in the carcasses of apes that
have been dead for several days.

5Effect On Wildlife
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Viruses that quickly kill their victims naturally fill
us with terror, but these are hardly the most
insidious. Death within a manner of days is scary,
but it is a terribly ineffective way to spread a
disease. Fast-acting viruses like Ebola have
historically burned themselves out quickly and
close to their original source, whereas viruses
that manifest slowly, such as HIV/AIDS, have
spread across the globe.
Scientists believe that the reason Ebola keeps
managing to pop up is that the virus has found a
reservoir in the bat population of central and
western Africa, in the same way that bats have
become the vector for rabies in other parts of the
world. The fruit bats, which are asymptomatic,
transmit the disease to animals like the duiker (a
small antelope) and primates like chimpanzees
and gorillas.
In more economically advantaged parts of the
world, these creatures would quickly perish, and
the story would be over. However, in many
parts of sub-Saharan Africa, there is brisk trade in
“ bush meat,” wild animals that are hunted and
sold when less palatable options are unavailable.
Bush meat can be nearly any species, including
bats, monkeys, and rats. While this sounds
revolting to many of us, it is a far superior option
to starving to death. It would have only taken a
single infected animal being eaten to start the
entire 2014 contagion.
4How Ebola Kills
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Although the plague thus far appears localized,
hospitals the world over are on high alert for the
symptoms of Ebola. Unfortunately, symptoms of
the early stages of the virus are so common that
they are frequently ignored or misdiagnosed. The
initial symptoms are quite like a cold or flu:
headache, exhaustion, body aches, fever, sore
throat, etc. Usually, these kinds of things might
portend an ugly few days but are unlikely to send
anyone scrambling for the nearest emergency
room.
Unfortunately, things get far worse from there.
The stomach soon revolts with vomiting,
diarrhea, and wracking gastrointestinal pain,
leaving the patient weakened for the next stage, in
which the virus attacks all the systemic functions
in the body. This is the most gory part, when the
“hemorrhagic” element of the fever becomes
apparent. Internal bleeding is common, the skin
breaks out in blisters, and blood pours from the
ears and eyes.
Death itself comes from various complications,
including seizures, organ failure, and low blood
pressure. There are several factors involved in
determining the mortality rate, including the
specific strain of the virus. The death rate of the
2014 outbreak hovered just above 60 percent as
of August.
3Vaccine
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In the past, Ebola spread from its animal hosts,
typically infecting a handful of people in rural
areas before fizzling out. While frightening and
great fodder for thrillers like 1995’s Outbreak,
whose plot revolves around a fictional form of
the disease, it didn’t arouse a great deal of
concern in the West. Developing a cure or
vaccine has not historically been a financially
viable option for pharmaceutical companies, since
there would be no profit in it.
Despite the lack of commercialization potential,
the world’s governments have been taking the
disease seriously for years, sinking millions of
dollars into research on how to stop Ebola if it
were to be used as a biological weapon. Some
experimental vaccines have shown great
promise, including one that completely prevented
rhesus monkeys from becoming infected with
the Zaire strain, the one responsible for the 2014
outbreak. This vaccine is so effective that it even
cured four monkeys that had already been
infected. However, interesting private industry in
making this a reality for the masses is an
altogether different hurdle.
2Transmission
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The precise mechanisms of the transmission of
Ebola are unknown. Most experts agree that it can
only be passed among humans through the
exchange of bodily fluids, though there is some
discussion that it may be spread aerobically from
pigs to other species. At first glance, it seems
easy to insulate oneself from such a virus, even
for primary caregivers, by limiting the transfer of
fluids.
Unfortunately, those who haven’t witnessed the
ravages of Ebola firsthand are all too quick to
underestimate exactly how much fluid leaks from
the body of an Ebola patient, particularly in the
latter stages, when blood can leak from every
orifice. Combined with the fact that a single nurse
or doctor is often charged with attending to
dozens of patients at a time and the generally
poor medical infrastructure of central and
western Africa, it is no surprise that clinicians
often find themselves sick.
1Treatment
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In the past, treatment of the Ebola virus was
practically nonexistent. Sufferers were only given
palliative care, including liquids and electrolytes to
keep them hydrated, painkillers like ibuprofen to
bring down fevers, and antibiotics to temper any
other complications and keep the immune
system strong enough to focus on fighting the
virus. The rest was largely up to the individual’s
own constitution and which strain had sickened
them.
However, the American victims, Kent Brantly and
Nancy Writebol, have received some
experimental medicine. Brantly was treated early
on with a blood transfusion from a 14-year-old
boy he had treated who had recovered from the
virus. They were also administered a serum
pioneered by San Diego’s Mapp
Biopharmaceutical derived from the antibodies of
animals exposed to Ebola. The serum is
supposed to spike the immune system and has
reportedly proven effective in improving Brantly
and Writebol’s condition. Other companies, such
as Vancouver-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals
and Fujifilm’s US partner MediVector, have also
been fast-tracked to develop Ebola treatments
before it is too late.

Everything about the disease is downright scary
I'm tired of all these ebola news sef

No doubt, dis is 'endtime.' Morte n more scary diseases re yet 2 come.