Ebola-hit west Africa launches emergency battle plan

The Ebola virus has now killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa. Although the mortality rate of the most recent outbreak isn't as high as in previous events, it's still the case that most people who become infected with Ebola will not survive. (The mortality rate is about 60 percent for the current outbreak, compared with 90 percent in the past, according to the National Institutes of Health.)

But despite this somber prognosis, health experts in the United States aren't particularly worried about the threat of Ebola in this countryor in other developed countries.
"I see Ebola as a significant threat in the specific regions that it has been identified in, certainly central and west Africa," said Cecilia Rokusek, a public health expert with Nova Southeastern University's Institute for Disaster and Emergency Preparedness in Florida. "But in my opinion, it's not an imminent threat for those in the United States." [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases]
Indeed, other viruses pose a larger threat to U.S. citizens, according to Rokusek.

Although some of these viruses have far lower mortality rates than that of Ebola, they are more prevalent in developed nations, and kill more people annually than Ebola does. Here are five viruses that are just as dangerous (if not more so) than Ebola:

Rabies
Over the past 100 years, rabies has declined significantly as a public health threat in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately two people now die yearly in the United States from this virus, which is transmitted to people through saliva when they are bitten by infected animals, such as dogs or bats.

People who know they have been bitten by an animal should receive the rabies vaccine, which prevents infection by the virus, according to the CDC. But, especially in the case of bat bites, people may not always realize they have been bitten.

And rabies has one of the highest fatality rates of any virus; only three people in the United States are known to have ever survived the disease without receiving the vaccine after exposure to the virus.
Still, the disease remains a greater threat in other areas of the world than in the United States. Approximately 55,000 people die of rabies every year in Africa and Asia, according to the WHO.

HIV
Though the number of annual deaths related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has declined in recent years, an estimated 1.6 million people worldwide died of HIV and autoimmune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) related causes in 2012, according to the WHO. The virus attacks a person's immune cells and weakens the immune system over time, making it very difficult for the infected individual to fight off other diseases.

About 15,500 people with an AIDS diagnosis died in 2010 in the United States, according to the CDC. In total, an estimated 650,000 people have died of AIDS in the United States since the disease was discovered in 1981. An estimated 36 million people have died worldwide from the epidemic.

Today, people with HIV do live longer than they used to, a trend that coincides with the increased availability of antiretroviral therapy, as well as the decline in new infections since the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1997. However, no cure for HIV exists.

Influenza
The flu may not sound very scary, but it kills far more people every year than Ebola does. The exact number of people who die each year from seasonal flu virus is the subject of much debate, but the CDC puts the average number of annual deaths in the United States somewhere between 3,000 and 49,000.

The large variation in yearly deaths arises because many flu deaths are not reported as such, so the CDC relies on statistical methods to estimate the number. Another reason for this wide range is that annual flu seasons vary in severity and length, depending on what influenza viruses are most prominent. In years when influenza A (H3N2) viruses are prominent, death rates are typically more than double what they are in seasons when influenza A (H1N1) or influenza B viruses predominate, according to the CDC.

A highly contagious virus, influenza sickens far more people than it kills, with an estimated 3 million to 5 million people becoming seriously ill yearly from influenza viruses. Worldwide, the flu causes an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Despite the relatively low mortality rate of the virus, public health professionals and doctors recommend annual flu shots to keep the risk of complications from influenza at bay.
"Healthy people should get their vaccines every year," Rokusek told Live Science. "Studies have shown that the flu vaccine is an effective preventative measure."

But flu vaccines, which offer immunity from influenza A and B viruses, do not protect against other forms of influenza, which can arise when the virus undergoes genetic changes. New strains of the flu result in higher than average mortality rates globally. The most recent influenza pandemic, the "swine flu" or H1N1 pandemic, killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people globally during 2009 and 2010, according to the CDC.

Mosquito-borne viruses
Spread through the bite of an infected mosquito, viruses such as dengue, West Nile and yellow fever kill more than 50,000 people worldwide every year, according to estimates by the WHO and the CDC. (Malaria — which is also spread by mosquitos, but is caused by a parasite rather than a virus — kills more than 600,00 people yearly.)

At least 40 percent of the world's population, or about 2.5 billion people, are at risk of serious illness and death from mosquito-borne viral diseases, according to the CDC.
Dengue fever, which is endemic to parts of South America, Mexico, Africa and Asia, claims approximately 22,000 lives every year, according to the CDC. Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a deadly infection that causes high fevers and can lead to septic shock.

These diseases occur in regions neighboring the United States, making them a threat in this country.

"Dengue is very active in the Caribbean, and travelers to the Caribbean come back to the United States with dengue," said Dr. Robert Leggiadro, a New York physician and professor of biology at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. [10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species]
People infected with dengue while traveling abroad can spread the disease at home when mosquitos bite them, and then bite other people, Leggiadro said.

Even more deadly than dengue is yellow fever, which mostly affects people in Latin America and Africa. The disease causes an estimated 30,000 deaths worldwide, according to the WHO.
Less deadly, but still dangerous is West Nile virus, a viral neurological disease that is spread by mosquitos that bite humans after feasting on birds infected with the virus. Although the vast majority of people infected with this virus will not show symptoms of West Nile, the disease has killed an estimated 1,200 people in the United States since it was first seen here in 1999, according to the CDC.

Rotavirus
Not everyone is at high risk of contracting rotavirus, but for children around the world, this gastrointestinal virus is a very serious problem. Approximately 111 million cases of gastroenteritis caused by rotavirus are reported every year globally, according to the CDC. The vast majority of those affected by the virus are children under the age of 5, and about 82 percent of deaths associated with the virus occur in children in developing nations.

Globally, an estimated 440,000 children who contract the virus die each year from complications, namely dehydration. In the United States, a vaccine for rotavirus was developed in 1998, but was later recalled due to safety concerns. A newer vaccine, developed in 2006, is now available and is recommended for children ages 2 months and older.
Despite routine vaccinations for rotavirus in the United States, the CDC estimates that between 20 and 60 children under age 5 die every year from untreated dehydration caused by the virus.

While some parents in the United States have expressed concern about the complications that may arise as a result of vaccinating for rotavirus, Leggiadro told Live Science that vaccination for this and other preventable diseases is the best way to safeguard against diseases that, if left untreated, can be deadly.

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — The medical school professors no longer want Kadiatou Fanta in the classroom. Her boyfriend has broken up with her. Each day the 26-year-old eats alone and sleeps alone. Even her own family members are afraid to touch her months after she survived Ebola.
Long gone are the days when she was vomiting blood and wracked by fever. And even with a certificate of health declaring her as having recovered, she says it's still as though "Ebola survivor" is burned on her flesh.

"Ebola has ruined my life even though I am cured," she says. "No one wants to spend a minute in my company for fear of being contaminated."
The Ebola virus is only transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids of the sick, such as blood, saliva, urine, sweat or semen. When the first cases emerged in Guinea back in March, no one had ever confronted such a virulent and gruesome disease in this corner of Africa.

The current outbreak now has killed more than 1,000 people, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization. The fatality rate in previous Ebola outbreaks has been up to 90 percent, though health officials say this time up to half of victims are surviving.

While there is no specific treatment for Ebola, patients can be given supportive care such as intravenous fluids to keep them hydrated. If they can live long enough to develop antibodies to the virus they can survive, though they could still contract other strains of Ebola in the future, medical experts say.

Health workers hope that seeing living proof that people can survive Ebola will encourage fearful communities to get medical care instead of hiding the sick at home where they can infect relatives.

In Sierra Leone, Sulaiman Kemokai, 20, was released from an Ebola treatment center on Sunday after spending 25 days there. He still feels stiffness in his joints but says he is gaining strength each day.

"When I became sick, I was scared to go to hospital, I hid from my family, from health workers. After four days I couldn't hide anymore, I was too sick. An Ebola ambulance collected me and took me to the hospital," he recalls.

But some within his community are reluctant to have any physical contact with Kemokai. Those released from treatment centers are no longer contagious, though Ebola can still be present in men's semen for up to seven weeks.

Kemokai will have more family support than most: His older brother and sister also have survived Ebola, while the disease took their mother's life.
Fanta, the Guinean medical student, says she was working as an intern at a clinic in Conakry, the capital, when a patient came in from the provinces sick with what doctors initially thought was malaria. She took the man's vital signs — but as is common in Guinea — she had no protective gloves or face mask.

About two weeks later, in mid-March, she started having diarrhea and soon was vomiting blood. She says her lasting troubles began when doctors declared her cured and discharged her from the isolation ward at the hospital in early April.

Although she no longer had the virus in her bloodstream, she still was visibly unwell after nearly three weeks in the hospital. Word of her sickness and return spread quickly in the poor suburb of Tanene where she was staying with extended family.

The boyfriend she used to see every day disappeared when he heard she had Ebola. Now he won't take her calls, even months later.
She tried to re-enroll with her medical school courses at Gamal Abdel Nasser University. In a sign of just how entrenched misconceptions are of Ebola, though, even the instructors did not want her in the classrooms, even though she handed them her certificate of health.

"I still haven't taken my exams while my classmates have moved on to the next level," she laments. "The professors said they were going to grade me by telephone."
Now she's living off what money her parents can scrape together to send her from their village, and still dreaming of when she can resume her courses.
"I want to take care of patients," she says. "The reason I am alive today and speaking to you now is because doctors saved me."

Good hygiene—the weapon vs Ebola virus
By Ellen T. Tordesillas, VERA Files

The president of a national physicians organization is reminding the public to practice good hygiene as one of the measures to combat the Ebola virus currently sweeping West Africa.

Tony Leachon, president of the Philippine College of Physicians and information director of the University of the Philippines-Manila, also urged the Department of Health to conduct a massive information campaign on the killer virus with the World Health Organization and medical groups.

“Everyone should be mobilized. We need to educate people and increase the sensitization. This is the key to stop the dangerous disease Ebola,” Leachon said.

The latest outbreak has infected 1,323 persons and claimed the lives of 729 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria as of July 27, according to the WHO.

The deadly Ebola virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola.

Three American health workers have contracted Ebola in Liberia. A missionary doctor who contracted the virus is now in isolation in Atlanta, while another health worker is scheduled to be brought back also to the United States. The third one is in isolation in his home in Tennessee.

Ebola virusThe DOH and the Bureau of Immigration have placed incoming passengers who have traveled to Africa as well as Filipino overseas workers coming home from Africa on the watchlist.

“The DOH should work with NAIA (the Ninoy Aquino International Airport) and all international airports and the Bureau of Immigration to train their personnel to identify passengers with travels to Africa, impose quarantine till a passenger has been cleared, and set up preventive measures including producing infographics and brochures on the Ebola virus,” Leachon said.

“The key is to secure all portals of entry,” he added.

Data from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas show there are about 202 Filipinos living or working in Guinea, 300 in Sierra Leone, 404 in Liberia and 7,282 Nigeria.

Leachon urged persons who suspect they have been infected with Ebola “to go to the isolation and treatment centers if they experience the earliest symptoms of the disease, to increase their chance of being cured and surviving.”

The symptoms of Ebola virus infection are similar to flu: fever, headaches, body aches, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

More serious symptoms may include red eyes, raised rash, chest pain and cough, stomach pain and severe weight loss.

The WHO recorded the first Ebola outbreaks in Sudan and Zaire in 1976 which left 431 people dead.

Because the virus is transmitted through direct or close contact with infected patients, particularly with their bodily fluids, the WHO warns against close physical contact with Ebola patients.

It said gloves and appropriate personal protective equipment should be worn when taking care of patients at home.

Regular hand washing is required after taking care of patients at home or visiting them patients in hospital, according to the WHO.