How much do you know about Ebola? Read this to know more.

THE EBOLA VIRUS

Ecology and natural history of epidemic provides opening to search for the mysterious reservoir of Ebola virus in connection with an acute outbreak. International scientific teams that arrived to deal with these highly virulent epidemics found that transmission had largely ceased; however, they could reconstruct considerable data from the survivors. A decision was made to throw a wide net and capture arthropods and vertebrates from several biotopes, recognizing that the diversity of tropical species would be a limiting factor.

The first problem was that the outbreak began in January during the rainy season, but because of the hindrance and postponement that was nurtured in recognition of the virus and other reasons; no research effort was mounted until several months later during the dry season which had allowed the not yet identified virus grow more and actively. In contrast, patients in the affected villages were segregated through traditional methods of quarantine, a step that controlled the situation outside the clinics. The history is made all the more complex by the fact that when some of these organizations began in the post-World War II era, much of the African continent was still ruled by European colonial administrations.

Medical amenities were shut down due to the fact of the high death toll among the staff in the hospitals, thus eliminating key centers for spreading of infection through the use of unsterilized needles and syringes and the lack of barrier-nursing techniques. A second problem was the choice of how to select the species sampled which is the first step in studying what kind of microorganism they are to deal with. This virus has been found to have an average mortality rate of 88 percent in humans, one of the highest recorded and that figure is very scary. What follows is a history of the virus, courtesy of the CDC, from its identification in 1976 all the way up to the present.

Unfortunately, no evidence of Ebola or antibodies reactive with the virus was found in vertebrates, and Ebola genomes were not amplified from the extensive arthropod collections. The most contagious diseases, such as measles or influenza, which virus particles are airborne are sometimes thought to be related with the virus. The human-human or body-fluid contact transmission of the disease is what made it a very viral and more deadly since the sick or attacked individuals who were put on quarantine were also touched by even the medical practitioners who were attending to them.

Human can be infected by other humans if they come in contact with body fluids from an infected person or contaminated objects from infected persons. It is not widely appreciated that there is only one reported study of any search for the reservoir. Humans can as well be exposed to the virus, for example, by butchering infected animals. Unprotected health care staffs are susceptible to infection because of their close contact with patients during treatment. 

Ebola is not transmissible if someone is asymptomatic or once someone has recovered from it. But, Ebola could be considered moderately contagious, because the virus is not transmitted through the air. Genome-sequencing has shown that this outbreak was not related to the 2014–15 West Africa Ebola virus outbreak, but was of the same EBOV species, the Zaire species. The CDC reports that in this particular outbreak, a number of cases spread through contact with Ebola victims' bodies at funerals -- a dangerous traditional practice which has also contributed to the spread of the current outbreak.

In the late 1970s after which issues about the virus have almost gone dead, the international community was again startled, this time by the discovery of Ebola virus as the causative agent of major outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan. This is the 7th outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, three of which occurred during the period when the country was known as Zaire.

The history of Ebola is currently in the middle of the biggest in the known history of the virus. Many ecologic investigations have been made in connection with other viruses; it is not known if the methods used would have detected Ebola virus, although EBO-Z is lethal in the most commonly used assay system, the suckling mouse.

In medical terms there is a difference in something being contagious and being infectious. Ebola is extremely infectious but not extremely contagious. The interpretation of these studies was improved by the results of work done during 1979–1980 in connection with the monkey pox surveillance program. The apartment is home to one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who traveled to Dallas and later died from the virus.

The first isolation and identification of Ebola virus was dated to 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Kikwit, investigators were challenged with multiple dilemmas, particularly timing and selection strategy. Many ecologic investigations have been made in connection with other viruses; it is not known if the methods used would have detected Ebola virus, although EBO-Z is lethal in the most commonly used assay system, the suckling mouse.

It was known in 1995 that arthropod cells and arthropods themselves were not readily infected with filoviruses, and these observations have been extended; however, one must ask if the correct arthropod has been experimented. The implicated key case was a charcoal maker who lived in the city of Kikwit.

In 2000, 425 people in Uganda contracted the Ebola-Sudan strain of the virus, and 53 percent of them (224 people) died. At that time, there was no guarantee that the virus would still be present in its natural habitat and thus it must have gone through some modifications.

          The discovery of Ebola virus generates additional prejudice against African migrants, a population that already suffers from greater prejudice than other immigrant groups. With thousands dead and thousands more infected in several different countries, the current crisis is unprecedented. But although it's the most widespread, this is far from the first major outbreak of Ebola the world has seen. Since its initial discovery, cases of Ebola fever have been identified and quarantined across central Africa.

In 2014, an outbreak of Ebola virus disease occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is infectious, because an infinitesimally minute amount can cause illness. The two health organizations that have played the most vital roles in the current Ebola epidemic are the World Health Organization, founded in 1946, and Doctors without Borders, founded in 1971.

Quite a lot of international teams began the search as soon as possible and made a broad general collection. But international health organizations in Africa have a long and complicated history. It began in August 2014 and was declared over in November of that year with a total of 66 cases and 49 deaths. The case of Ebola virus has been deadly since its first time in history and always been catastrophic.

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