An outbreak of a deadly epidemic caused by the Ebola virus has been recorded in West Africa. The scale of the 2014 epidemic is unparalleled in terms of the geographic spread of the virus, the number of people infected and deaths from this virus. At the same time, Médecins Sans Frontières reported at the end of June that the outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa was out of medical control and could threaten the entire region. It is worth noting that Ebola is a fatal disease, with a mortality rate of up to 90%. A vaccine against this virus simply does not exist at this time.
At the end of June 2014, Médecins Sans Frontières identified more than 60 locations with confirmed cases of this deadly virus. Representatives of the organizations issued a warning that they no longer have the opportunity to send teams of doctors to those points where suspicious cases are identified. The spread of the Ebola virus has ceased to be limited to the territory of Guinea, threatening all of West Africa.
An outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever was recorded in January this year in Guinea, over time it spread to the neighboring states of Liberia and Sierra Leone. According to the WHO (World Health Organization), this outbreak of the epidemic has become the longest and deadliest ever recorded in Africa. The death toll already exceeds that in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), where 254 people fell victim to the Ebola virus in 1995.
However, the spread of the virus does not end there. On July 8, Reuters, citing WHO data, reports that 50 new infections have been recorded since July 3, as well as 25 deaths from the Ebola virus. All of them are recorded in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. In total, since February 2014, the epidemic has affected 844 people, of whom 518 have died. At the same time, the Guinean authorities have reported only two new deaths caused by the Ebola virus since July 3, noting that no more cases of infection have been recorded in the past two weeks. According to doctors from the WHO, this makes it possible to classify the situation in West Africa as "mixed".
Realizing the danger of this disease and the threat of its spread, the ministers of health of 11 countries in West Africa held an emergency meeting in early July this year, at which a strategy to combat the outbreak of the virus was approved. The journalists reported that as part of the new strategy, the World Health Organization is going to open a new prevention center in this region of the world, the headquarters of which will be in Guinea. The initiator of the ministerial meeting was WHO, the meeting itself lasted for two days. It also resulted in an agreement reached between the parties that the countries of the continent will strengthen their cooperation in combating the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
In addition to opening a regional prevention center in Guinea, WHO intends to provide logistical support on a regular basis. According to Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's Director-General for Health Security, it is currently not possible to accurately assess the extent of the damage that could be caused to all of humanity by the spread of Ebola. At the same time, the official expressed the hope that in the next few weeks we will all witness a decrease in mortality from this disease. According to WHO experts, it is working with the population, and not closing borders between countries, that can become the most effective way to combat the epidemic and contain it at the moment. Despite the fact that the situation is currently under medical supervision, WHO doctors urged West African countries, including Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, to be prepared for a possible outbreak and spread of the virus.
Transmission electron microscopy image of the Ebola virus
Ebola virus
The Ebola virus, which has long been called Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a deadly disease with a mortality rate of up to 90%. This virus was first identified only in 1976 in Africa in the countries of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan in the Ebola River region, it was the river that gave the name to the virus. In Sudan, 284 cases of infection were recorded (151 people died), in Zaire - 318 cases of infection (280 people died). Since then, there have been several major epidemics of the virus in Africa. There is currently no vaccine or adequate treatment for the virus. It was found that the virus is able to infect not only humans, but also primates and pigs.
It has a very high index of contagiousness (infectivity), which reaches 95%. From person to person, the virus is transmitted through microtraumas on the skin, mucous membranes, entering the lymph and blood of both humans and animals. In this case, the Zairian subtype of the virus is also transmitted by airborne droplets. It is the Zairian subtype that is the most dangerous and deadly. In total, 5 subtypes of this virus have been identified, which differ from each other in the percentage of lethality.
The spread of the virus is facilitated by funeral rituals in which there is direct contact with the body of the deceased. The virus is secreted from patients within 3 weeks. Doctors have documented cases of human infection from chimpanzees, gorillas and dukers. Quite often, there were cases of infection of medical workers who went into close contact with patients without observing the proper level of protection.
The incubation period of the disease is usually from two days to 21 days. The clinical symptoms of the disease are similar to another extremely dangerous disease for humans - Marburg fever. Differences in the frequency of deaths and the severity of the disease during epidemics in various African countries are associated with antigenic and biological differences in the identified virus strains. In this case, the disease always begins with severe weakness, muscle pain, severe headaches, abdominal pain, diarrhea, sore throat. Later, the person is diagnosed with a dry cough and stitching pains in the chest area. Signs of dehydration appear. When examining the blood of sick people, thrombocytopenia, neutrophilic leukocytosis and anemia are noted. Death from the disease usually occurs as early as the second week against the background of shock and bleeding.
There is simply no vaccine or cure for this disease yet. At the same time, none of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world has invested money in the creation of such a vaccine. This behavior of companies is explained by the fact that the vaccine has a very limited potential sales market, which means that its release does not promise large profits.
Ebola vaccine research has long been funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Defense. In America, they seriously feared that a new virus could become the basis for someone in the creation of a powerful biological weapon. Thanks to the allocated funds, a number of relatively small pharmaceutical companies were able to create their own vaccine prototypes against this virus. They are reported to have undergone a series of successful animal tests. And two companies, Tekmira and Sarepta, were even going to test the vaccine in humans.
In 2012, virologist Jean Olinger, who works at the Institute for Infectious Diseases of the US Army, said that if the current level of funding for the programs is maintained, the vaccine could be developed in 5-7 years. But already in August 2012, information appeared that the US Department of Defense was stopping funding for the creation of a vaccine due to the emergence of "financial difficulties."
In Russia, for the entire time since the discovery of this virus, 2 deaths from the Ebola virus have been recorded. Both times laboratory assistants became victims of a dangerous disease. In 1996, a laboratory assistant at the Virological Center of the Research Institute of Microbiology of the Russian Ministry of Defense died in Sergiev Posad. She contracted the virus through negligence, stabbing her finger while injecting rabbits.
Another similar incident occurred on May 19, 2004. A 46-year-old senior laboratory assistant who worked in the department of especially dangerous viral infections of the Research Institute of Molecular Biology of the State Scientific Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector", located in the Novosibirsk region in the village of Koltsovo, has died from the African virus. It was later established that on May 5, 2004, a senior laboratory assistant, having injected experimental guinea pigs already infected with the Ebola virus, began to put a plastic cap on the syringe needle. At that moment, her hand trembled, and the needle pierced both pairs of gloves worn on the hand, punctures and the skin on the left palm. All this tells us that even the study of the virus can be fraught with mortal danger.
