Ebola Virus Disease | Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever: Cause Symptoms Diagnosis Treatment
Ebola is caused by a virus via direct contact with body fluids or infected blood. Scientists have identified five types of Ebola or Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus.
Ebola is caused by a virus via direct contact with body fluids or infected blood. Scientists have identified five types of Ebola or Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf quarantined West Point and Dolo Town, to the east of the capital, and imposed a night-time curfew as part of new drastic measures to fight the disease.
Residents of West Point, where club-weilding youths stormed an Ebola medical facility on Saturday, reacted with fury to the crackdown, hurling stones and shouting at the security forces.
Doctors Worldwide Should Stay Alert on Developments in Ongoing Ebola Epidemic
Doctors worldwide should be prepared to identify Ebola virus infection in hospitals and emergency rooms, and isolate patients if necessary, infectious disease specialists recommend.
Doctors worldwide should be prepared to identify Ebola virus infection in hospitals and emergency rooms, and isolate patients if necessary, infectious disease specialists recommend.
"They can't suddenly lock us up without any warning, how are our children going to eat?"
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'Invest in Health, Build a Safer Future': World Health Day
There is a need for greater co-operation between governments, corporate sector and citizens to ensure international preparedness and to provide a universal safety net to deal with global health issues
There is a need for greater co-operation between governments, corporate sector and citizens to ensure international preparedness and to provide a universal safety net to deal with global health issues
The death toll from the epidemic that has swept through west Africa since March now stands at 1,229 after a surge of 84 deaths in just three days, according to the World Health Organization.
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Quiz on Ebola
Why is the deadly Ebola virus outbreak making the health experts hit the panic button? Find out from this quiz.
Why is the deadly Ebola virus outbreak making the health experts hit the panic button? Find out from this quiz.
Two Nigerians who traveled to Vietnam from Nigeria were undergoing tests at a specialist hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, health officials said Wednesday.
And in Myanmar, a local man was also being tested after arriving from Guinea.
The cases follow the news on Tuesday that patients were also being tested in the United States and Spain.
- Health services 'overwhelmed' -
From its initial outbreak in Guinea -- where 394 people have died so far -- the virus spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, overwhelming inadequate public health services already battling common deadly diseases such as malaria.
Straining the situation even further, several top officials leading the fight have lost their lives to the disease.
A doctor who treated Nigeria's first Ebola patient was named among the dead on Tuesday, taking the death toll in Africa's most populous country to five.
Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, 40, was "the most senior who participated in the management of the (first Ebola) patient" in the country.
The UN's new pointman on Ebola, David Nabarro, was expected to arrive in west Africa on Wednesday evening, and is hoping to shore up health services in the four affected countries.
The British physician said he would focus on "revitalizing the health sectors" in the affected countries, many of which have only recently emerged from years of devastating conflict.
Efforts to contain the epidemic have also run up against local distrust of outside doctors, and stories of aid workers carrying the infection.
Liberia's leader warned that local rituals were among the factors spreading the disease.
"We have been unable to control the spread due to continued denials, cultural burying practices, disregard for the advice of health workers and disrespect for the warnings by the government," Sirleaf said.
- 'Encouraging signs' -
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib noted "encouraging signs" in Nigeria and Guinea, where prevention measures and work to trace lines of infection were starting to take effect.
The Nigerian outbreak has been traced to a sole foreigner, a Liberian-American who died in late July in Lagos. All subsequent Nigerian victims have had direct contact with him.
In Sierra Leone, where 365 people have died from the virus, the outbreak has also been traced back to one person: a herbalist in the remote eastern border village of Sokoma.
"She was claiming to have powers to heal Ebola. Cases from Guinea were crossing into Sierra Leone for treatment," Mohamed Vandi, the top medical official in the hard-hit district of Kenema, told AFP.
No cure or vaccine is currently available for Ebola, which is spread by close contact with body fluids, meaning patients must be isolated.
Given the extent of the crisis, the WHO has authorized largely untested treatments -- including ZMapp and the Canadian-made VSV-EBOV vaccine, whose possible side effects on humans are not known.
Three doctors in Liberia who had been given the experimental US-made ZMapp are reportedly responding to the treatment.
Countries throughout Africa and beyond remain on high alert, however, with the Equatorial Guinea airline, Ceiba Intercontinental, the latest to suspend flights to the whole region.
Source-AFP
