Ebola is back–10 things you need to know

Ebola infection isolation
  1. Ebola causes a severe disease with fever, rashes, vomiting, diarrhea, and sometimes internal and/or external bleeding. It kills about half of  patients.
  2. Humans are first exposed to the virus from contact with bats or other infected animals. Once a person is infected, they can transmit the virus directly to other people via bodily secretions.  All bodily secretions are considered infectious, but the virus cannot spread through the air.
  3. The largest outbreak occurred in West Africa in 2014-2015, affecting almost 30,000 people and killing 40% of them.  From this outbreak, 4 cases occurred in the U.S.–2 traveled from Africa and 2 additional healthcare workers contracted the disease.
  4. The current outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo involves 58 people and 27 have died.
  5. Healthcare workers are frequently infected during outbreaks due to close contact with patients despite rigorous precautions and personal protective equipment.
  6. Burial ceremonies that involve contact with the deceased, which are common in Africa, have been implicated to spread disease.
  7. Ebola virus has been detected in semen of male survivors months after infection, but it is not known whether it can be transmitted via sexual intercourse this long after infection.
  8. Rehydration and supportive care improves survival, but there is no proven therapy to treat patients with Ebola. A few experimental therapies are being tested.
  9. There is no licensed vaccine available, though an experimental vaccine appeared to work during the West Africa outbreak and has been deployed to Democratic Republic of Congo.
  10. Ebola virus is a slow moving target that poses little risk for a worldwide pandemic with proper control and coordination from the WHO and partners.

For more information:
WHO
DynaMed Plus 
Cloudy Media Blog posts about Ebola

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