EBOLA

By Lisa M.

The Ebola virus was discovered nineteen years ago when outbreaks killed more than four hundred people in Zaire and Sudan, still it remains a gruesome mystery. When it gets into an organism such as humans the first symptoms are fever and malaise within the first few days. Then, as the virus starts replicating, the victims capillaries clog with dead blood cells, causing the skin to bruise, blister and eventually dissolve like wet paper. By the sixth day the patient begins to hemorrhage internally, leaking blood from the eyes, ears and other orifices. The patient will then start vomiting the black sludge of his/her disintegrating internal tissues." Plague Warriors, Vanity Fair August 1995; 85". The internal organs turned to bloody mush shut down and the patient is dead by day nine. Once Ebola gets into a habitat most likely every living creature in that habitat will die.

In the first Ebola outbreak in Zaire in 1976, doctors traced the virus to a single man in a small village. They determined that he had probably become infected from a syringe, but they lost the trail after that. They believe that a stranger passing by the village visited the local clinic, contaminated a syringe or some other piece of equipment, and then moved on, dying an unnoticed death on the road. (Plague Warriors, 86) Since the 1976 Ebola outbreak, C. D. C. Scientists have combed Zaire for the animal host of the disease, trapping everything from spiders to monkey's but have had no luck tracking down the pathogen.

Major problems aroused in 1991 when soldiers unpaid by the Tyrannical president Mobutu Sese Seko looted Zaire and quickly sent it back into another century. In Kikiwit, the main road link to Kinshasa fell apart. The trip these days if anyone dares can take hours through potholes, ruts and other roadside threats. Phone lines were hitched to the backs of cars and dragged from poles to the point where U.S. Embassy officials say there is hardly a phone in the city. (Plague Warriors, 86). The once vigorous health care system now lies in tatters. Doctors and nurses do not even have the luxury of disposable gloves or masks to protect themselves and prevent the spread of disease, much less medicine for their patients.

A number of scientists are arguing that the outbreak of new virulent pathogens is traceable to the increasing contact people have with rain forests and the exotic animals that live there. No one is sure where the virus originates, though monkeys are known to be infected by it. No confirmed "patient zero" has been found in the three other humans Ebola epidemics, in 1976 in Zaire and in 1979 in Sudan again.

In Zaire forty-four percent of the counties estimated forty-three million people live in towns and cities. Only fourteen percent have access to clean water. The nations Urban hospitals remain a breeding ground for infection.(Plague Warriors, 86). New syringes are in short supply and sanitation is inadequate. At the University hospital in Kinsha, several patients share a single bed. Corpses had pilled up for months in the morgue at the city's larger Mama Yemo Hospital because administrators lacked the funds to dispose of them.

Humans affect anything on earth. If we get sick we can pass it on to animals and then everything will be infected, and extinct is forever. The Ebola virus is an example how two organisms cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Even from asking essential questions and doing good research we have not found a cure for Ebola.

If Ebola did become airborne it would not survive more than a few minutes in the atmosphere. Ultra violet light destroys it. As deadly as it is, Ebola is ill equipped to go global, and humanity is well equipped to stop it. (Plague Warriors, 92). We should all be thankful that we have the benefits of clean safe hospitals and water.

Reference:

"Plague Warriors", Vanity Fair, August,1995, pgs 85-92.