BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – INTERNATIONAL travel has recently been disrupted as restrictions were implemented and enforced by a number of countries worldwide, including St. Kitts and Nevis, in light of the prevailing Ebola that has affected almost 9 000 people in West Africa and killed almost 4 500.
Today (Oct. 20), a number of Heads of State and governmental representatives of various countries that make up the regional integration bloc are gathering in Havana, Cuba to address a joint contribution to the prevention and fight against this deadly disease.
According to reports reaching SKNVibes, former leader Fidel Castro said on Saturday (Oct. 18) that Cuba stands ready to cooperate with the US in the battle against Ebola. Reports also stated that Cuba is sending 460 doctors and nurses to West Africa to help fight against the disease, an effort that was praised by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Reports also stated that Major Darryl Williams, a top Army commander with the Pentagon’s Africa Command, is currently leading 571 US troops in Senegal and Liberia to assist the Agency for International Development in building mobile hospitals and other facilities to fight Ebola.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that Liberia is by far the most worrisome of the three West African countries affected by this disease. Approximately 2 500 people have died in that country and some families are reportedly hiding deaths to bypass the government’s mandatory cremation policy.
“The true number of deaths will likely never be known, as bodies in the notoriously poor, filthy and overcrowded West Point slum, in the capital, Monrovia, have simply been thrown into the two nearby rivers,” the WHO has said in September.
Close to 1 200 people have died in Sierra Leone, including doctors and nurses. It is reported that every district in that country is affected and the government has put five of them under quarantine, thus preventing residents there from leaving the area.
In Guinea, the third hardest hit country, 778 people have died and the WHO stated that the first case identified was that of a two-year-old boy from a village called Meliandou. He had taken ill and died last December.
According to a CNN report, “The experiences of Nigeria and Senegal offer a rare bright spot in this outbreak. International MSF teams left Nigeria on October 5. If there are no new cases reported there by Monday, the outbreak will be declared officially over there.”
The virus was introduced in Nigeria by an air traveller, who arrived in Lagos in July, and the WHO credits an aggressive government response and effective contact tracing for keeping the virus in check. Ebola claimed eight lives in that country.
Meanwhile in Senegal, there was just one confirmed case of Ebola, and that patient made a full recovery. Last week, the WHO had declared that country free of the disease.
However, what is Ebola? What are the dangers it presents to those affected?
In an effort to sensitise readership on Ebola, SKNVibes had completed a research which provided much details on this deadly virus that is seriously affecting the lives of many.
What is Ebola?
According to WHO, Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is “a severe, often fatal illness in humans”. It first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in Nzara, Sudan; and in Yambuku in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a village situated near the Ebola River, from which the disease got its name.
It is a rare and deadly virus that causes bleeding inside and outside the body. As the virus spreads through the body, it damages the immune system and organs. Ultimately, it causes levels of blood-clotting cells to drop, which leads to severe, uncontrollable bleeding.
Ebola is mainly found in tropical Central and West Africa, and can have a 90 percent mortality rate - although it is now at about 60 percent, according to The Telegraph. The virus is known to live in fruit bats and normally affects people living in or near tropical rainforests.
How is it transmitted?
According to The Telegraph, “It is introduced into the human population through close contact with the sweat, blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.
“The virus then spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids.”
The WHO however said that the disease is not contagious until a person begins to show symptoms.
Symptoms of Ebola
The first signs are a fever with a headache, joint and muscle pain, sore throat and severe muscle weakness and lack of appetite. As the disease gets worse, it causes diarrhoea, vomiting, a rash and stomach pain. The kidneys and liver stop working properly and patients may bleed internally and also from the ears, nose, eyes and mouth.
It is said that the first symptoms are similar to flu and that of the Chikungunya Virus, and that it could take two to 21 days for the symptoms to show.
Some other ways how one can be infected
The Guardian, speaking to the transmission of the disease from using gym equipment, reported that sweat is probably not a source of large amounts of virus and that the WHO said whole live virus has never been isolated from sweat.
Further explanation by the media agency stated that nobody who had Ebola and was symptomatic, with intense muscle weakness and a fever in the early stages, would be well enough to go to the gym – and until they are symptomatic they are not infectious.
And for the transmission of the virus from saliva, the WHO said that saliva at the most severe stage of the disease, and also tears, may carry some risk, but the studies are inconclusive.
The agency also addressed getting Ebola from toilet seats. It stated that faeces from somebody with Ebola are a real hazard and the virus has also been detected in urine. But there would only be a danger if a seriously sick person had used the toilet and contaminated it, and that is most likely in their home or hospital. Public toilets, in general, are very unlikely to be a risk.
Ebola can also be sexually transmitted because it was proven that the virus remains in the semen of people who had recovered for as a long as 90 days.
Generally, the virus can be transmitted on surfaces that bodily fluids have touched, so if somebody had bled or vomited on the seat of a vehicle, say public transport, there would be a risk to anybody who had a cut or touched their face with contaminated hands. It is suggested that any public or private transport in which an infected had travelled would have to be decontaminated.
Door handles can also be one of the areas in which the disease can be transmitted. It can be transmitted if a handle were contaminated with blood, vomit or faeces, which would be more likely in the house where the patient had been living when he or she fell sick, or in a hospital. But if people have intact skin, do not touch their eyes, nose or mouth and frequently wash their hands, they will not get infected.
Treatment for Ebola
There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, and testing to confirm the virus must be done with the highest level of biohazard protection. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive. Patients are frequently dehydrated and require oral rehydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids, The Telegraph reported.
The media house also reported that “a significant problem with the current outbreak is families lose faith in Western medicine, which cannot yet cure the patients. They then take them home to traditional village healers, which often leads the disease to spread”.
It is suggested that the best way to avoid infection is by not travelling to areas where the virus is found; while health care workers could prevent infection by wearing masks, gloves and goggles whenever they come into contact with people who may have Ebola, as well as not touching infected needles.
Types of Ebola
There are five subtypes of Ebola virus and four of them cause the disease in humans: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast, Ebola-Bundibugyo, and Ebola-Reston.
All of these subtypes are found in Africa, except for Ebola-Reston, which is found in the Philippines. It is the only subtype that will not cause illness in humans; it only affects animals.
The Ebola virus first appeared during two 1976 outbreaks in Africa. However, the current outbreak of the virus, which the WHO declared as “out of control”, started in Guinea in December 2013 and had spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and now threatens the world if steps were not taken to contain its spread.
