FollowA while back we reported on one of the two American Ebola survivors, Nancy Writebol, and now it’s time we took a closer look at the Ebola situation in West Africa.
Things are getting out of hand in West Africa, as the present Ebola outbreak has killed more people than all the previous outbreaks combined, a recent report revealed. A new analysis performed by the World Health Organization suggests that the virus can no longer be stopped from making West Africa its permanent residence.
But what sets apart this preset virus from all those in the past? Well, it’s no more lethal or virulent than the ones in the past, revealed the New England Journal of Medicine, but the conditions in the infected regions in Africa are different. Firstly, there is a complete lack of approved drugs and secondly, the cross-border travel is much more common than it used to be.
WHO estimated that more than 20,000 are going to be infected with the deadly Ebola virus by the November 2. The same researchers have determined the fatality of the disease and the number is bone-chilling: 71% of all confirmed cases resulted in the patient dying.
There is also a chance that the present Ebola outbreak might never leave humans and that it might always be present in some areas of Africa. Up until now, fruit bats were infected and from time to time humans would get infected.
Sherry Towers, a computational modeling professor at Arizona State University had this to say about the present Ebola outbreak and its outcome.
Diseases with a very high mortality, like Ebola, don’t usually persist because they are too effective at killing their hosts. A dead person can’t move around in the population and continue to spread disease to susceptible hosts.
Do you think that Africa isn’t going to be able to shake the present Ebola outbreak off? Drop us a line in the comment section below and tell us about it.
