Ebola Deadliest Strain Now Threatens Planet

How to stop the planet’s largest and deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus in history from spreading further is the sole question health experts are meeting in Ghana are addressing today, but the prospects look grim.

“Drastic action” is needed to halt the killer, the WHO has reported, showing 759 cases and out of those, 467 deaths, in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as of June 30. The outbreak only began three months ago, in March.

These numbers make the outbreak the “largest in terms of the number of cases and deaths as well as geographical spread,” WHO says.

It is not only uncontained, It is also a strain of the Ebola virus that can kill up to 90% of those infected.

Dr. Peter Piot, the scientist who first discovered the Ebola virus in the 1970s, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the situation is “unprecedented,” providing three points as to why this is a historic event.

“One, [this is] the first time in West Africa that we have such an outbreak,” he said. “Secondly, it is the first time that three countries are involved. And thirdly it’s the first time that we have outbreaks in capitals, in capital cities.”

The violent killer’s symptoms, first mimic the flu: headache, fever, fatigue.

“What comes next sounds like something out of a horror movie: significant diarrhea and vomiting, while the virus shuts off the blood’s ability to clot,” reports CNN on Thursday.

Patients subsequently often suffer internal and external hemorrhaging. Many die in an average of 10 days.

“People are traveling without realizing they’re carrying the deadly virus,” CNN says.

It takes between two and 21 days after exposure for someone to feel sick.

A patient isn’t contagious (can’t spread the virus to other people) until they are showing symptoms.

A “massive deployment of resources” is needed by West African nations and other organizations, according to Doctors Without Borders, that says it has already reached the limit of what its teams can do.

“The epidemic is out of control,” says Dr. Bart Janssens, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) director of operations. “With the appearance of new sites in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, there is a real risk of it spreading to other areas.”

Doctors Without Borders is currently the only aid organization treating those infected with Ebola.

“The people living in these areas said there’s no such thing as ebola,” said a district doctor speaking on condition of anonymity. “They have their traditional beliefs and their traditional cures and they look up to their traditional leaders.”

The organization is even ”having difficulty responding to the large number of new cases and locations,” it said.

“Until we can bring the traditional leaders onside, it will be very difficult to convince them that ebola even exists.”

And until that happens, the deadly disease is threatening to spread to other continents.

There is no cure for Ebola. In theory, however, the disease should be easy to fight, Piot told CNN.

“You need really close contact to become infected,” He said. “So just being on the bus with someone with Ebola, that’s not a problem.”

“This is an epidemic of dysfunctional health systems,” Plot added, then blaming the same human rights abuses at the core of most deadly diseases, fear and government.

 ”Fear of the virus, and the lack of trust in government, in the health system, [are] as bad as the actual virus,” Plot said.

Sources: CNN, The Guardian