Ebola, the hemorragic fever is closer that what yout think, but there is not reaon to panic, yet.

Ebola, the hemorrhagic fever is closer that what you think, but there is not reason to panic, yet.

In case you did not heard about it, the CDC (Center of Disease control)reported an outbreak of a "more virulent" Ebola virus infections in Guinea, spreading now to Sierra Leone . Ebola virus is the etiological agent of severe hemorrhagic fever. The symptoms? fever, rash, severe abdominal pain and vomiting, bleed both internally and externally. The fatality rate? around 90%. Even worse, this outbreaks are occurring with increasing frequency. Some explanations for this are the increased contact between humans and the natural reservoir of the viruses (fruit bats), and fluctuations in viral load and prevalence in this reservoir (Polonsky et al. 2014). The transmission of the virus mostly occurs by contact with infected blood, secretions or organs of either bats, nonhuman primates or humans. This is why you should not eat bats or monkeys if you visit any of the affected areas, or hung out around the cemeteries. Not surprisingly, Ebola was named as the most frightening disease in the world. It was documented for the first time in 1976 in the Republic of Congo, one of the sources came from the Ebola River.

In 2012 an outbreak in Uganda found us in a similar medical emptiness: the research of two of the vaccines that were "apparently" going great had been canceled by the department of defense, due to founding constrains. Therefore, so far we do not have any vaccine or effective treatment available.
Albeit a DNA based vaccine was described in 2003 to fully protected macaques against the fatal virus, it did not continue to further clinical trials.It was not until 10 year later, that a group in the US National Institutes of Health published the research about a vaccine consisting of a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus expressing the ebola glycoprotein which to protects macaques from Ebola virus infections, although this method is not licensed for human use (Marzi 2013). But, why does the US department of defense care about an African virus? the answer is pretty obvious: it can be used as a bio hazard weapon. On the other hand, no leading pharmaceutical is gonna invest in a "very expensive and time consuming" vaccine development to be used in countries that can not afford even a basic level of health care. Some compounds are showing a promising antiviral effect "in vitro" and/or an inhibition of a variety of viral protein activities. Sadly, all of them are in an early stage of drug development.
Before freaking out, the best "cure" and prevention method against this scaring virus is knowledge, so check out the updates in the CDC web:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-outbreak-in-guinea-5-things-you-should-know-1.2584439


Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014 Feb 10. [Epub ahead of print]
Emerging Filoviral Disease in Uganda: Proposed Explanations and Research Directions.
Polonsky JA1, Wamala JF, de Clerck H, Van Herp M, Sprecher A, Porten K, Shoemaker T.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jan 29;110(5):1893-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1209591110. Epub 2013 Jan 14.
Antibodies are necessary for rVSV/ZEBOV-GP-mediated protection against lethal Ebola virus challenge in nonhuman primates.
Marzi A1, Engelmann F, Feldmann F, Haberthur K, Shupert WL, Brining D, Scott DP, Geisbert TW, Kawaoka Y, Katze MG, Feldmann H, Messaoudi I.