Must read!!! Ebola virus disease 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 Ebola first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous outbreaks, in Nzara, Sudan, and in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter was in a village situated near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name. Genus Ebolavirus is 1 of 3 members of the Filoviridae family (filovirus), along with genus Marburgvirus and genus Cuevavirus. Genus Ebolavirus comprises 5 distinct species: Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) Reston ebolavirus (RESTV) Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV) Taï Forest ebolavirus (TAFV). >Transmission Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals. In Africa, infection has been documented through the handling of infected chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest. Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced. Signs and symptoms EVD is a severe acute viral illness often characterized by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes. People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. Ebola virus was isolated from semen 61 days after onset of illness in a man who was infected in a laboratory. Diagnosis Other diseases that should be ruled out before a diagnosis of EVD can be made include: malaria, typhoid fever, shigellosis, cholera, leptospirosis, plague, rickettsiosis, relapsing fever, meningitis, hepatitis and other viral haemorrhagic fevers. 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. Vaccine and treatment No licensed vaccine for EVD is available. Several vaccines are being tested, but none are available for clinical use. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. Patients are frequently dehydrated and require oral rehydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids. No specific treatment is available. New drug therapies are being evaluated. Source: who.int/
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 07:13:29 +0000
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