As the virus spreads through the body, it damages the immune system and organs. Ultimately, it causes levels of blood-clotting cells to drop. This leads to severe, uncontrollable bleeding.
The disease, also known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever or Ebola virus, kills up to 90% of people who are infected.
Could There Be an Outbreak in the U.S.?
Although movies and books describe major outbreaks of Ebola-like disease in the U.S., they're just fiction. So far serious Ebola cases have only shown up in Central and West Africa.
The CDC says there’s no significant risk of Ebola in the United States. It has strong safety measures in place for people who have Ebola and are brought to the U.S. for treatment.
Ebola can spread from country to country when people travel. So it is possible for it to reach the U.S. if an infected person travels here. But there are ways to prevent people from coming to U.S. airports with the disease.
Airline crews are trained to spot the symptoms of Ebola in passengers flying from places where the virus is found. Crews are told to quarantine anyone who looks infected.
Key facts
* Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.
* EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%.
* EVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.
* The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
* Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus.
* Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals.
How Do You Get Ebola?
Ebola isn’t as contagious as more common viruses like colds, influenza, or measles. It spreads to people by contact with the skin or bodily fluids of an infected animal, like a monkey, chimp, or fruit bat. Then it moves from person to person the same way. Those who care for a sick person or bury someone who has died from the disease often get it.
Other ways to get Ebola include touching contaminated needles or surfaces.
You can’t get Ebola from air, water, or food. A person who has Ebola but has no symptoms can’t spread the disease, either.
What Are the Symptoms of Ebola?
Symptoms of Ebola HF typically include:
Fever
Headache
Joint and muscle aches
Weakness
Diarrhea
Vomiting
Stomach pain
Lack of appetite
Some patients may experience:
A Rash
Red Eyes
Hiccups
Cough
Sore throat
Chest pain
Difficulty breathing
Difficulty swallowing
Bleeding inside and outside of the body
Symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure to ebolavirus though 8-10 days is most common.
Some who become sick with Ebola HF are able to recover, while others do not. The reasons behind this are not yet fully understood. However, it is known that patients who die usually have not developed a significant immune response to the virus at the time of death.
How Is Ebola Diagnosed?
Ebola virus infections can be diagnosed definitively in a laboratory through several types of tests:
antibody-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
antigen detection tests
serum neutralization test
reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay
electron microscopy
virus isolation by cell culture.
Samples from patients are an extreme biohazard risk; testing should be conducted under maximum biological containment conditions.
Tests of blood and tissues also can diagnose Ebola.
If you have Ebola, you’ll be isolated from the public immediately to prevent the spread.
Medical Treatment
A temporary hospital under construction in Africa Standard treatment for Ebola HF is still limited to supportive therapy. This consists of:
* balancing the patient’s fluids and electrolytes
* maintaining their oxygen status and blood pressure
* treating them for any complicating infections
Natural host of Ebola virus
In Africa, fruit bats, particularly species of the genera Hypsignathus monstrosus, Epomops franqueti and Myonycteris torquata, are considered possible natural hosts for Ebola virus. As a result, the geographic distribution of Ebolaviruses may overlap with the range of the fruit bats.
Timely treatment of Ebola HF is important but challenging since the disease is difficult to diagnose clinically in the early stages of infection. Because early symptoms such as headache and fever are nonspecific to ebola viruses, cases of Ebola HF may be initially misdiagnosed.
However, if a person has the early symptoms of Ebola HF and there is reason to believe that Ebola HF should be considered, the patient should be isolated and public health professionals notified. Supportive therapy can continue with proper protective clothing until samples from the patient are tested to confirm infection.
Experimental treatments have been tested and proven effective in animal models but has not yet been used in humans.
Prevention & Control
Controlling Reston ebolavirus in domestic animals
No animal vaccine against RESTV is available. Routine cleaning and disinfection of pig or monkey farms (with sodium hypochlorite or other detergents) should be effective in inactivating the virus.
If an outbreak is suspected, the premises should be quarantined immediately. Culling of infected animals, with close supervision of burial or incineration of carcasses, may be necessary to reduce the risk of animal-to-human transmission. Restricting or banning the movement of animals from infected farms to other areas can reduce the spread of the disease.
As RESTV outbreaks in pigs and monkeys have preceded human infections, the establishment of an active animal health surveillance system to detect new cases is essential in providing early warning for veterinary and human public health authorities.
Reducing the risk of Ebola infection in people
In the absence of effective treatment and a human vaccine, raising awareness of the risk factors for Ebola infection and the protective measures individuals can take is the only way to reduce human infection and death.
Controlling infection in health-care settings
Human-to-human transmission of the Ebola virus is primarily associated with direct or indirect contact with blood and body fluids. Transmission to health-care workers has been reported when appropriate infection control measures have not been observed.
It is not always possible to identify patients with EBV early because initial symptoms may be non-specific. For this reason, it is important that health-care workers apply standard precautions consistently with all patients – regardless of their diagnosis – in all work practices at all times. These include basic hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, the use of personal protective equipment (according to the risk of splashes or other contact with infected materials), safe injection practices and safe burial practices.
Health-care workers caring for patients with suspected or confirmed Ebola virus should apply, in addition to standard precautions, other infection control measures to avoid any exposure to the patient’s blood and body fluids and direct unprotected contact with the possibly contaminated environment. When in close contact (within 1 metre) of patients with EBV, health-care workers should wear face protection (a face shield or a medical mask and goggles), a clean, non-sterile long-sleeved gown, and gloves (sterile gloves for some procedures).
Laboratory workers are also at risk. Samples taken from suspected human and animal Ebola cases for diagnosis should be handled by trained staff and processed in suitably equipped laboratories.
Clean Up
* Fumigate if you have pets
* Rodents can be carriers of ebola
* Fumigate your environment and dispose of the car cases properly
* Dead bodies can still transmit ebola
For more information contact:
WHO Media centre
Telephone: +41 22 791 2222
E-mail: mediainquiries@who.int
source: CDC/WHO
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