Ebola outbreak in Africa - claimed the lives of 84 people and is difficult to stop

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the Ebola outbreak in Guinea is serious, but has not yet reached epidemic proportions. According to the organization's data, 84 people died from the disease out of the 122 suspected cases of it in Guinea. The Doctors Without Borders organization fears that the epidemic will increase many deaths before you stop

A particularly virulent strain of the Ebola virus has broken out in the West African country of Guinea. The country, which lies at the foot of the rain forests, is a tourist attraction, but its proximity to the dense forest also puts it at risk of outbreaks of epidemics such as Ebola.

The Ebola virus, one of the scariest viruses in the world, is spread by bats or by eating game meat, a common phenomenon in villages and remote areas of the country. Its symptoms begin with a feeling of heat, weakness and cold, but quickly develop into fatal symptoms. This particular strain, known as the Zaire strain, kills 90% of those infected with it. There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola.

Ebola Zaire affects every organ in the human body, except the skeletal muscles and bones. The virus kills a considerable amount of tissue while the infected person is still alive. It produces insidious point necrosis that quickly spreads throughout all the internal organs. Symptoms such as internal bleeding from the eye, nose, mouth and ears made Ebola the stuff of horror movies.

More on the subject on the science website

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• A safe version of the Ebola virus has been developed for experimentation

The disease, which was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, is spread by person-to-person contact involving blood and other bodily fluids. Theoretically, it is quite easy to curb the spread through simple preventive measures, but in the neglected agricultural areas, things are out of control. Moreover, rural hospitals routinely lack basic medical equipment and protective systems. They use reusable needles and have minimal sanitary equipment to sanitize the buildings.

The aid organization Doctors Without Borders is in the area and has come to the conclusion that stopping the epidemic will be difficult. According to their spokesman, the disease has spread to many areas in Guinea and neighboring Liberia. Usually the epidemic is stopped because it kills its carriers faster than they can infect others, but this time, the aid organization fears, the wide spread of cases of infection will cause many deaths before the epidemic is stopped.

To fight the virus, Guinea issued a ban on eating bat meat and warned villagers to stay away from rats and monkeys. However, despite the risk, game meat is the only source of protein in many villages. In some communities, eating atfal is a traditional source of food. Some of the neighboring countries have closed their land border with Guinea.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is trying to calm the sense of panic in some of the country's regions about the Ebola outbreak in the East African country. The organization rejects the claim of the aid organization "Doctors Without Borders" that the dimensions of the Ebola outbreak are unprecedented.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said there have already been larger outbreaks of Ebola in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He said that the outbreak in Guinea is relatively small compared to the one in Uganda in 2000-2001 where over 400 people were infected.

Four cases were reported in the capital of Guinea, Conakry, but according to Hartl, reporting of patients in capital cities is not uncommon, for example it happened in Gabon in the nineties when cases were reported in Libreville, in that case patients from remote places came to the capital to receive better care than the basic care in the periphery. So far the pattern of the epidemic is no different from previous Ebola outbreaks. The cases of Ebola infection in Liberia, including seven deaths, are also among Liberians who traveled to Guinea and became infected there, and that laboratory tests of the suspected infections in Sierra Leone found that they were not infected.

However, Hartl said it is essential to stop the chain of infections. "It is necessary to control the infections in hospitals. It's a question of infection control between those who might have been infected and don't know yet, and therefore didn't go to hospitals either. And as always, there are clear instructions on what to do in hospitals and how to monitor contacts between people."

See also the post "A story with a bad ending” in the blog “The End of the World Viewed from the Stand” by Dr. Karen Landsman

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