Ebola Gets Worse in West Africa
NYTimes.com
JUNE 8, 2014
The World Health Organization warned last Wednesday that the epidemic caused by the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, which had seemed to be waning, has recently taken a turn for the worse. The afflicted nations and their neighbors will need to redouble their efforts to contain a virus for which there is neither a cure nor a vaccine.
The virus is thought to reside normally in fruit bats, which then spread it to other animals and, through them, to humans. Human-to-human transmission occurs through contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected people or through contact with objects contaminated with those fluids. It can take up to 21 days for symptoms to develop; the victims are hit with sudden fever, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and sometimes internal and external bleeding.
In the absence of a specific treatment, patients are given intense supportive care, such as oral rehydration with electrolytes. Most patients die — up to 90 percent of them in some outbreaks.
The W.H.O. reported that between May 29 and June 1, Guinea, which documented its first case back in December, recorded 37 new cases and 21 new deaths to bring its cumulative totals to 328 cases (193 of them laboratory-confirmed) and 208 deaths. Sierra Leone, which reported its first cases just a few weeks ago, has reached a cumulative total of 79 cases (18 confirmed), including six deaths.
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