Not only has this latest outbreak killed more people than all previous outbreaks combined, at nearly 2,000 dead it rivals many military conflicts occuring right now (Gaza, Ukraine) although Syria outstrips all of them by another 100,000 dead.
Ebola is currently found in 5 countries: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the USA (voluntarily brought here to attempt to save two US citizens infected with the disease, and the further study it and this specific strain).
It is not transmitted through the air, and it doesn't go through your skin. You have to not only come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of a noticably infected person, but those fluids have to enter your body through cuts, open sores, mucus membranes (nose, eyes, mouth, other orifices) before you can become infected.
So it's actually not a very easy to transmit disease, save for the fact that if you care for someone who is ill, you are likely to come into frequent contact with their vomit or diarrhea, and so without care and attention you can become infected. It can survive on surfaces for an extended period of time.
The greatest way to stop infection is to educate people - if someone in their family or community becomes sick, they should not attempt to treat them, they should be cared for in a medical facility with appropriate safeguards. This is why, even if it's released into the wild in the US, it wouldn't get very far.
There is no cure or treatment for Ebola. It runs its course, and currently treatment for symptoms is all that medical staff can do. Death occurs in up to half the cases of infection. More in some places, less in others, so we can probably reduce mortality with good medical care, but even in good conditions 1 in 5 infected will die.
It's currently believed that bats can carry it and incubate it. It kills primates, so infection from that source is unlikely. Investigators have traced this current outbreak to a suspect patient zero - a 2 year old child who became sick near the end of last year, died in a matter of weeks, whose family also died after suffering the same illness, and then people in the community started becoming ill and dying. There's no "smoking gun" as to how she got it, but the most likely theory is that she ate a fruit that an infect bat nibbled on and left saliva behind.
Public education and isolation are the only tools that will stop the outbreak at this point in time.
Ebola is currently found in 5 countries: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the USA (voluntarily brought here to attempt to save two US citizens infected with the disease, and the further study it and this specific strain).
It is not transmitted through the air, and it doesn't go through your skin. You have to not only come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of a noticably infected person, but those fluids have to enter your body through cuts, open sores, mucus membranes (nose, eyes, mouth, other orifices) before you can become infected.
So it's actually not a very easy to transmit disease, save for the fact that if you care for someone who is ill, you are likely to come into frequent contact with their vomit or diarrhea, and so without care and attention you can become infected. It can survive on surfaces for an extended period of time.
The greatest way to stop infection is to educate people - if someone in their family or community becomes sick, they should not attempt to treat them, they should be cared for in a medical facility with appropriate safeguards. This is why, even if it's released into the wild in the US, it wouldn't get very far.
There is no cure or treatment for Ebola. It runs its course, and currently treatment for symptoms is all that medical staff can do. Death occurs in up to half the cases of infection. More in some places, less in others, so we can probably reduce mortality with good medical care, but even in good conditions 1 in 5 infected will die.
It's currently believed that bats can carry it and incubate it. It kills primates, so infection from that source is unlikely. Investigators have traced this current outbreak to a suspect patient zero - a 2 year old child who became sick near the end of last year, died in a matter of weeks, whose family also died after suffering the same illness, and then people in the community started becoming ill and dying. There's no "smoking gun" as to how she got it, but the most likely theory is that she ate a fruit that an infect bat nibbled on and left saliva behind.
Public education and isolation are the only tools that will stop the outbreak at this point in time.
