Why Ebola outbreak in Guinea is a huge concern?

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a rare but severe, often fatal illness in humans

Guinea has declared an Ebola epidemic after three people died in the country’s southeast. Four others too have reportedly become ill from the disease. The head of Guinea’s health agency on Sunday told reporters that the country was in the midst of an Ebola “epidemic situation” with seven cases confirmed in the West African nation, including three deaths. The Ebola cases marked the first known resurgence of the virus in West Africa since a 2013-2016 epidemic that began in Guinea and left more than 11,300 dead across the region. Here’s more on the epidemic in the West African nation…

Haemorrhagic fever

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a rare but severe, often fatal illness in humans. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.

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The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks. Community engagement is key to successfully controlling outbreaks.

Supportive care

Good outbreak control relies on applying a package of interventions, namely case management, infection prevention and control practices, surveillance and contact tracing, a good laboratory service, safe and dignified burials and social mobilization.

Vaccines to protect against Ebola are under development and have been used to help control the spread of Ebola outbreaks in Guinea and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Early supportive care with rehydration, symptomatic treatment improves survival. There is no licensed treatment proven to neutralize the virus but a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies are under development.

How the Ebola virus attacks

A viral disease that causes fever, vomiting and intense diarrhea

1. Virus enters body through contact with infected blood, urine, feces, semen or other bodily fluids. Incubation 2 – 21 days

2. Attacks immune system, destroys white blood cells

3. Infected cells transport the virus throughout the body

4. Forms blood clots that damage organs and also depletes clotting agents

5. The immune system goes into dangerous overdrive known as a “cytokine storm”, ultimately turning against itself

6. The disease can attack all organs including brain, liver, kidneys, intestines, eyes, genitals

7. Overall vascular system damaged. Internal and external bleeding, from wounds, mucus membranes and orifices

Death can be caused by organ failure or hypovolemic shock, the loss of more than 20 percent of blood or fluid supply

Survivors are normally considered cured if virus
is no longer detectable in the bloodstream, typically within weeks of infection

Fruit bats of the pteropodidae family are hosts of the
Ebola virus…

Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (EHF)

Provokes fever, vomiting and intense diarrhea

Ebola is a Filovirus, identified in 1976

The group includes the Marburg, another deadly virus

Viruses are submicroscopic, a fraction of the size of a typical bacteria

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