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Ebola
Infection with the Ebola virus leads to
Ebola hemorrhagic
fever (EHF; commonly referred to as simply Ebola) is a recently identified,
severe, often fatal infectious disease occurring in humans and some primates.
Ebola was first discovered in 1976, and since its discovery, different
strands of Ebola have caused epidemics with 50 to 90 percent mortality
in Zaïre, Gabon and Uganda.
Among humans, the virus is transmitted by direct contact with infected
body fluids such as blood. The incubation period of
Ebola hemorrhagic
fever varies from two days to four weeks. There are four known strains
of Ebola-like viruses, three of which cause the deadly disease, the CDC
said on its web site.
The Ebola virus is spread by contact with body fluids, including sweat
and saliva. Outbreaks of the disease are rare, and no one knows where
the virus lives when it is not infecting humans. The disease usually kills
its victims so fast that it also destroys the host for the virus. The
viruses are probably preserved in an undefined reservoir in the rain forests
of Africa
Symptoms are variable too, but the onset is usually sudden and characterized
by high fever, prostration, myalgia, arthralgia,
abdominal pains and
headache.
These symptoms progress to
vomiting,
diarrhea, oropharyngeal lesions,
conjunctivitis, organ damage (notably the kidney and liver) by co-localized
necrosis, proteinuria, and bleeding both internal and external, commonly
through the gastrointestinal tract. Death or recovery to convalescence
occurs within six to ten days.
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