Ebola virus disease ... Symptoms ... Treatment

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Ebola virus disease

is one of numerous Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers. It is a severe, often fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates. Symptoms start two days to three weeks after contracting the virus.

Transmission

Direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with

·         a sick person's blood or body fluids (urine, saliva, feces, vomit, and semen)

·         objects (such as needles) that have been contaminated with infected body fluids

·         infected animals

Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced.

Signs and symptoms

ü  Fever (greater than 38.6°C or 101.5°F)

ü  Severe headache

ü  Muscle pain

ü  Weakness

ü  Diarrhea

ü  Vomiting

ü  Abdominal (stomach) pain

ü  Lack of appetite

The incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms is 2 to 21 days.

Diagnosis

Other diseases that should be ruled out before a diagnosis of EVD can be made include: malaria, typhoid fever, shigellosis, cholera, leptospirosis, plague, rickettsiosis, relapsing fever, meningitis, hepatitis and other viral haemorrhagic fevers.

Ebola virus infections can be diagnosed definitively in a laboratory through several types of tests:

·         antibody-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)

·         antigen detection tests

·         serum neutralization test

·         reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay

·         electron microscopy

·         virus isolation by cell culture.

Samples from patients are an extreme biohazard risk; testing should be conducted under maximum biological containment conditions.

However, if a person has the early symptoms of Ebola HF and there is reason to believe that Ebola HF should be considered, the patient should be isolated and public health professionals notified. Samples from the patient can then be collected and tested to confirm infection.

Treatment

Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. Patients are frequently dehydrated and require oral rehydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids.

The FDA has allowed two drugs,  Zmapp and an  RNA interference drug called  TKM - Ebola, to be used in people infected with Ebola under these programs during the 2014 outbreak

      No specific treatment is available.

     No  vaccine is currently available for humans.

Prevention 

·          Practice careful hygiene. Avoid contact with blood and body fluids.

·         Do not handle items that may have come in contact with an infected person’s blood or body fluids.

·         Avoid funeral or burial rituals that require handling the body of someone who has died from Ebola.

·         Avoid contact with bats and nonhuman primates or blood, fluids, and raw meat prepared from these animals.

Reducing the risk of wildlife-to-human transmission from contact with infected fruit bats or monkeys/apes and the consumption of their raw meat. Animals should be handled with gloves and other appropriate protective clothing. Animal products (blood and meat) should be thoroughly cooked before consumption.

·         Avoid hospitals where Ebola patients are being treated.

·         After you return, monitor your health for 21 days and seek medical care immediately if you develop symptoms Ebola .

·         Health-care workers caring for patients with suspected or confirmed Ebola virus should apply, in addition to standard precautions, other infection control measures to avoid any exposure to the patient’s blood and body fluids and direct unprotected contact with the possibly contaminated environment. When in close contact (within 1 metre) of patients with EBV, health-care workers should wear face protection (a face shield or a medical mask and goggles), a clean, non-sterile long-sleeved gown, and gloves (sterile gloves for some procedures).