EVD is a seriously fatal disease in humans with percentages that arrive up to 90%. Its outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages of Central and West Africa and it is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals. Its symptoms start 2 days to three weeks after contracting the virus, with a fever, sore throat, muscle pain and headaches — your typical Influenza symptoms. Typically, vomiting, diarrhea and rash follow, along with decreased functioning of the liver and kidneys. Around this time, affected people may begin to bleed both within the body and externally.
The latest outbreak occurred in March 2014, where the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a major Ebola outbreak in Guinea, West Africa. This outbreak has till now been the largest ever documented, and the first recorded in this particular region. Researchers traced the outbreak to a two-year old child who died on 6 December 2013. As of 10 April 2014, WHO reported over a 150 suspected and confirmed cases in Guinea, 22 suspected cases in Liberia, and 8 suspected cases in Sierra Leone. By the following July, the reported death toll had reached almost 830 people from 1440 cases. This month, on the 8th of August, the WHO stated that the epidemic has become an international public health emergency. The Director-General has been urging the general public to offer help in these affected regions by saying, “Countries affected to date simply do not have the capacity to manage an outbreak of this size and complexity on their own. I urge the international community to provide this support on the most urgent basis possible.” Further attempts to contain the outbreak were endorsed by placing troops on roads to barricade the infected areas and cease those who may be infected from leaving and therefore further spreading the virus.
By mid-August 2014, over 2,100 suspected cases including almost 1,500 deaths had been reported, however the World Health Organization has said that these numbers may be greatly underestimated. They report that scares of Ebola among health care professionals and patients has shut down much of the city’s healthcare system which has resulted in leaving many people without treatment for other conditions. Lately, tens of thousands of people in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone have been under quarantine, leaving them without access to food and it is due to this that the United Nations’ World Food Programme has publicized that it will provide rations to 24,000 Liberian people affected by this epidemic.
On behalf of the Malta Health Students’ Association, we would like to announce that we are currently organizing a seminar to be held in the upcoming weeks, on the dangers of Ebola Virus Disease and we invite everyone to attend. As Doctors Without Borders have recently described the situation as “catastrophic” and “deteriorating daily”, we feel that locally there has not yet been that much awareness as there should be.