What is Ebola virus disease?

What is Ebola virus disease?

Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness, with a death rate of up to 90 per cent.The illness affects humans as well as primates, including monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees.How do people become infected with the virus?

Ebola is transmitted through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals.

In Africa infection in humans has happened as a result of contact with chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead in the rainforest.

Once a person becomes infected, the virus can spread through contact with a sufferer's blood, urine, saliva, stools and semen. A person can also become infected if broken skin comes into contact with a victim's soiled clothing, bed linen or used needles.

Men who have recovered from the disease, can still spread the virus to their partner through their semen for seven weeks after recovery
The Ebola virus is fatal in 90 % of cases and there is no vaccine and no known cure

Who is most at risk?

Those at risk during an outbreak include:

• health workers
• family members or others in close contact with infected people
• mourners with direct contact with the bodies of deceased victims
• hunters in contact with dead animals

What are the typical signs and symptoms?

Sudden onset of fever, intense weakness,  muscle pain, headache and sore throat. That is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function and internal and external bleeding.

The incubation period is between two and 21 days. A person will become contagious once they start to show symptoms.

When should you seek medical care?

If a person is in an area affected by the outbreak, or has been in contact with a person known or suspected to have Ebola, they should seek medical help immediately.What is the treatment?

Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. They need intravenous fluids to rehydrate them.

But there is currently no specific treatment for the disease. Some patients will recover with the appropriate care.Can Ebola be prevented?

Currently there is no licensed vaccine for Ebola. Several are being tested but are not available for clinical use
There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, which is spread by contact with infected blood or bodily fluids 

 Ebola (below) has already killed 672 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and infected more than 1,200 since it was first diagnosed in February 2014

The latest outbreak of Ebola is the most severe since the disease was discovered in 1976. So far the disease has spread from a village in Guinea to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria

The disease has swept through Western Africa, having first been detected in Guinea in February.

Since then victims have succumbed to the incurable illness, which starts with flu-like symptoms before evolving to cause catastrophic internal bleeding, in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

A number of patients have been discharged from Ebola treatment centres in Guinea after successfully beating the Ebola virus, says Médecins Sans Frontières  

U.S. citizen Patrick Sawyer, pictured with his daughter Ava, died on FridayJuly 25,2014 in the Nigerian capital of Lagos having become infected with the Ebola virus. His death prompted fears of a global pandemic after he flew from Liberia to Nigeria

The outbreak has hit Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and has now killed a man in far more densely populated Nigeria. The outbreak is the deadliest ever of the terrifying disease as the death toll crept past 670