Ebola 3 Essay, Research Paper

Ebola-Pronunciation: E-’bO-l&, i-, e-

Function: noun

Etymology: Ebola River, Zaire, site of an outbreak of the virus in 1976

Date: 1977

: An RNA-containing virus of African origin that causes an often fatal Hemorrhagic fever — called also Ebola.

Zaire, 1976

A strange virus kills 340 of Zaire’s natives. This virus has never been seen by man, so there is no cure. Three out of four people die, and the fourth person, who lives, will suffer severely. This virus is believed to come from the Ebola River in Zaire. The virus’ name is Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, also known as Ebola for short. Ebola is a member of RNA virus’ known as filoviruses. Filoviruses are enveloped, single stranded, negative-sense of RNA viruses. Ebola is the deadliest virus known to man, and spreads in a breath of air. The symptoms of this deadly virus starts with sudden fevers, weakness, muscle pain, extreme headaches, and soar throats. These symptoms begin four-sixteen days after infection. After about 2 days of these symptoms you start to “crash”. A crash is when you vomit uncontrollably until there is nothing left to vomit (you vomit blood, bile and other liquids of the body), you suffer from diarrhea, limited kidney function, internal and external bleeding, you bleed from every opening on your body, blood fails to clot, so if you get cut in any way your body will never stop bleeding from that wound. Ebola could spread and infect everyone in the world in 48 hours.

Marburg, Germany

In this small German town people were taking tests on African monkeys. These monkeys were infected with the infamous Ebola virus. What’s horrifying about Ebola is that the virus can change easily, as it did with this newest strand, Marburg. Now, the original Ebola is known as Ebola-Zaire. Marburg is not as bad of a virus as Ebola-Zaire is, the fatality rate is 1 out of 4 people, while Ebola-Zaire’s is 3 out of 4. Marburg is not spread through the air, like Ebola-Zaire is; Marburg is spread through sexual intercourse. Marburg mainly focuses on the lower half of a person’s body. The symptoms of Marburg are worse than Ebola-Zaire, but not as many people die from Marburg. Let’s hope we never see any other Ebola virus, ever.

Sudan

Ebola strikes again! This strand of Ebola, Ebola-Sudan, is weaker than Zaire but spreads easier than Marburg, making Sudan the “middle” virus. The symptoms are identical to Zaire’s, but the fatality rate is only 1 in every 4 people, like Marburg.

Reston, VA, 1989

A fourth strand of Ebola appears, and scares politicians because this new strand was first found next to Washington DC! This could end life on this planet. Not much information is known about yet, just that the virus spawned from a monkey house in Reston, VA, a suburb of Washington DC. The government is getting involved, and the monkey house has already been quarantined. So far there are no human deaths, but dozens of monkeys have suffered and died. This virus is as powerful as Ebola-Zaire is, from the effects we have seen on monkeys. But, this virus is not the same as Zaire; it is a different strand, named Ebola-Reston.

Reston, VA, 1990

It turns out that the outbreak of Ebola in Reston, VA does not affect humans, only monkeys. This virus is highly contagious, but only to monkeys. Humans can still be infected with the virus, they just don’t have any symptoms and don’t die, but they can infect monkeys if a human has the virus.

Bibliography

Ebola Virus Homepage (online) Available

http://members.aol.com/ebola11/index.html

WWWebsters Dictionary (online) Available

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=ebola