Ebola Virus

Ebola virus is one of the deadliest viruses in the world, and a cure for which has not yet been discovered. Ebola virus infection is called Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF). The virus is named after the Ebola River where the first case of the disease had occurred.

Eboli virus

After the virus infection, there is an incubation period of about 2 to 20 days before the symptoms start to show. At the beginning, an infected person will have fever, muscle aches, headache, weakness, which then followed by diarrhea, vomiting. As the Ebola virus targets the endothelium inside the body, blood vessel walls, organs linings, digestive tract linings will all be damaged from the infection eventually. As a result, patients start to bleed internally and externally.

If a person is detected to have Ebola virus infection, the individual has to be isolated, as Ebola is a highly contagious virus. Among humans, Ebola virus can be transmitted from infected patients to people simply by contacts of body part. (body fluids, skin, mucous membrane) Although this disease is highly transmissible, contacting patients in early stage may not be infected.

To date, there is still no cure for Ebola HF. Medications are given to patients to ease their symptoms. The patients have to depend on their immune systems to fight against the deadly virus. The mortality rate for the disease can be up to 89%, whereby most of the patients die from organs failure.