While the Ebola virus ravages parts of Africa, there might be a tendency to feel far removed from its realities since it is thousands of miles away but doctors from the United States who were sent to assist have contracted the deadly virus that has killed 632 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone according to the World Health Organization.
Doctors say blood, sweat, vomit and bodily fluids have been shown to transmit the deadly virus. Unlikely as it may be, is this virus a plane-ride away? Do we have a regional response to the possibility of Ebola reaching the shores of the Caribbean?
Two US doctors are currently being treated in Liberia and the country has closed its borders and the disease is being considered the worst outbreak. Reports indicate that the virus is now spreading to Nigeria.
Dr. Kent Brantly, the medical director of the Samaritan’s Purse Ebola Center in the Liberian capital Monrovia is one of the doctors infected and is currently in isolation and receiving treatment. Another doctor, Nancy Writebol, has also tested positive for Ebola. Ebola spreads through a community by human to human contact with resultant infection.
Up to 90% of those infected die
Infection can occur when someone comes into contact with broken skin or mucous membranes, blood, secretions and other bodily fluids of infected people as well as indirect contact with environments contaminated with these fluids. The highly contagious virus kills up to 90 percent of those it infects but the medical community is doing all possible to save the lives of the doctors infected.
Nigeria reported its first case last week after an infected Liberian man landed in Lagos, Africa’s largest city. Blood, vomit and sweat are known to have shown evidence of the Ebola virus. Only painkillers and fluids offer relief but the statistics for survival are grim.
Ebola has no cure or treatment and leads to death in as many as 90 percent of those who contract it. It has killed 660 plus people in four West African nations since March. It was first reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976. Other outbreaks have occurred since 1972 but in small pockets of people living in remote villages near tropical villages.
According to reports one medical worker said, “I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with Ebola preparations,” he emailed. “Overwhelmed with fear is what I felt. Just one week after who were on their way to an AIDS conference on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, I wasn’t ready to think about losing another friend”, he is alleged to have posted.
“When an Ebola patient loses consciousness and bleeds copiously, there is no hope,” the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said in an emailed statement. “At this point, we ease the patient’s pain and accompany her or him until the end.”
With respect to treating the infected, doctors are required to wear two pairs of latex gloves, a surgical cap and protective Tyvek suit as well as safety goggles. Meanwhile residents in areas torn with Ebola do not wish those who died to be buried in the community causing another nightmare according to Doctors Without Borders.
Vaccine works in monkeys
Meanwhile in Texas, Ebola scientist Thomas Geisbert, at the University of Texas Medical Branch, said that has dedicated 23 years of his life to finding a cure for the disease. He said that through a $26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), his team has come up with a vaccine that works in monkeys. “We can completely protect monkeys with this vaccine with just a single shot,” he said.
“But you look at this outbreak and the doctor in Sierra Leone who’s infected, the people most at risk are the people who put their life on the line, and it would be great to vaccinate those people.”
It is now for policy-makers to push for the vaccination, he said.
