The scientists seem to be working on a tough task, to find out the life span of Ebola virus, which travels from person to person through direct contact with infected body fluids.
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.
The researchers explain that knowing how long the deadly pathogen survives on surfaces, in water, or in liquid droplets is critical to developing effective disinfection practices to prevent the spread of the disease. Currently, the WHO guidelines recommend to hospitals and health clinics that liquid wastes from patients be flushed down the toilet or disposed of in a latrine. However, Ebola research labs that use patients' liquid waste are supposed to disinfect the waste before it enters the sewage system. Bibby's team set out to determine what research can and can't tell us about these practices.
The researchers scoured scientific papers for data on how long the virus can live in the environment. They found a dearth of published studies on the matter. That means no one knows for sure whether the virus can survive on a surface and cause infection or how long it remains active in water, wastewater, or sludge. The team concluded that Ebola's persistence outside the body needs more careful investigation.
To that end, Bibby recently won a 110,000 dollars National Science Foundation grant to explore the issue. His team will identify surrogate viruses that are physiologically similar to Ebola and study their survival rates in water and wastewater. The findings of this study will inform water treatment and waste-handling procedures in a timely manner while research on the Ebola virus is still being conducted.
The article was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.
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Ebola virus is still continuing to spread and the WHO's efforts are proving insufficient to contain it.
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The deceptively simple structure of the Ebola virus is the key to taming it, believe scientists, as they race to find a cure to the continued battle against the Ebola epidemic.
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