Over the past few months, the world and all its inhabitants have been in an uproar as more and more cases of a deadly disease are confirmed all across Western Africa. It proves the risk of traveling to bigger and more prominent countries. The killer’s name is Ebola.
The chaos began presumably in early December of 2013 with a young boy named Émile. Although he is not considered patient zero, he is at the beginning of the long line of victims, and no one before him is traceable. The only thing authorities are sure of is that the outbreak stemmed from one person, which in turn most likely came from an infected animal. From that one person, more and more people were infected from contact with that person. This is proven through the DNA trail that is left by the disease. So far, there have been more than 6,500 confirmed cases and over 3,000 deaths in several different countries: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On September 30, 2014, the first United States case of Ebola was confirmed at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Thomas Eric Duncan was visiting his family in the Dallas area when he started to feel ill four or five days after his arrival. Upon his first trip to the emergency room, he was sent home with simple antibiotics, but it soon became clear that those would not solve the problem. Authorities say he has had direct contact with at least eighteen different people, including children from surrounding schools. None of those, however, have displayed symptoms of the virus, and four remain quarantined in a Dallas apartment under the watch of healthcare officials.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is caused by one of five different types of Ebola viruses. In addition to Zaire, which is the source of the current outbreak, there are three others that affect both humans and animals. Another, the Reston virus, can only affect animals. It is often spread from mammals, like fruit bats, to humans through the handling of bushmeat that has had direct contact with the infected animal. The very first outbreaks were confirmed in 1976 in the areas that are now the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. It was ridiculously lethal and was quickly named Ebola after the Ebola River, where it was first recognized. Although extremely infectious, it is not classified as extremely contagious because it only travels through the transfer of bodily fluids, not through air like other diseases. But even a small amount can have a devastating impact once it enters the body. Symptoms like fever, aches, diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain are often indicators of infection. They can appear anywhere from two to twenty-one days after initial contact. The fatality rate can be as high as 90%.
Far away on another continent, this epidemic doesn’t feel like something Americans should be worried about, but now that it has hit a lot closer to home, the threat is very real and incredibly terrifying. Where will this end? How many people will be affected? Could it go global? We will find out soon enough.