Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (HF) is considered one of the major killer infectious diseases to ever affect the humans. This fever is caused by a virus known as Ebola (named so after the name of a river in Democratic Republic of Congo where the virus was identified for the first time). In July 1976, first ever instance of Ebola virus was found in a cotton factory in the town of Nzara in Sudan. The mortality rate was unprecedented as the virus spread to the east of that country and affected even those who treated it. Later on, Ebola virus became the common name for several types of viruses, three strains of which are known to cause the HF. To show the relation with the areas where these viruses occurred, researchers use name like Ebola/Zaire (EBOZ), Ebola/Sudan (EBOS), and Ebola/Tai Forest (EBOT). A fourth Ebola strain called Ebola/Reston (EBOR). Defying this all, some conspiracy theories say that it is a man made virus.

Outbreaks

Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (HF) mostly breaks out in sporadic patterns. Its cases are reported usually from the areas where a health care facility is set up. Researchers believe that many of the isolated and sporadic cases go unreported and undiagnosed.
Large scale outbreaks of the disease have been reported mostly from the continent of central Africa. In 1976, the first two cases of this deadly disease were reported from Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and western Sudan. These were the most serious outbreaks (550 cases in total) resulting in deaths of 340 people. The third outbreak was reported from Sudan in 1979. Due to increase awareness and precautionary measures, this time its scale was smaller with 34 cases and 22 deaths. As mentioned earlier, most of these cases occurred in hospitals with little or no medical necessities. This resulted in re-use of infected needles and syringes. However, these outbreaks were controlled by quarantining the sick. The persons who visited these people were strictly required to wear special gowns, masks and gloves. The needles and syringes were then sterilized. The wastes and corpses were disposed in a sanitary fashion.
Some outbreaks have occurred because of poor expertise of doctors and nurses treating the infected persons. For example, in 1995 in the Bandundu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo an outbreak caused 316 deaths. The cause of the outbreak was the poor nursing techniques employed by the hospital staff that got them infected in the course of treating the patients. This amplified the spread of the fever and since then such cases of outbreak are termed as "amplification". As the situation got out of control, health official from the Democratic Republic of Congo appealed for help. Teams from World Health Organization, Belgium, France, South Africa and CDC reached on the spot to investigate, collaborate and control the outbreak.
Two isolated cases of Ebola HF were recognized in Cote d'Ivoire in 1994-1995. In Gabon the outbreak was reported in 1996. A patient from the 1996 Gabon outbreak came to Johannesburg, South Africa. There he fatally infected a health-worker.
In England, a laboratory worker got the infection when he used a needle-stick. United States is so far safe as no case of the disease in humans has been known until now. However, when some monkeys were being imported to the United States from Philippines for research facilities, many research workers got the infection but fortunately did not become ill. A similar outbreak occurred when the monkeys were brought to Italy.

Containment

Because of the sophisticated procedures involved in diagnosing the disease, the containment becomes an uphill task. Medically, the virus is treated using a technique called supportive therapy in which patient’s fluids and electrolytes are balanced while maintaining their blood pressure and oxygen. On a broader scale, the prevention becomes hard given the undetermined nature of the identity and natural reservoir of Ebola virus. For better prevention, healthcare personnel must be able to recognize the disease symptoms and apply precautionary measures accordingly like quarantining the affected. The wearing of gloves, goggles, gowns and masks must be made mandatory when interacting with people kept in quarantine. These measures will stop the transfer of blood or secretions of the patients. In case a patient dies of Ebola HF, a direct contact with the body must be avoided. As much as possible, the hospital guidelines manuals must be provided to the healthcare personnel. From a futuristic point of view, the suspected areas must be monitored to determine any incidence of the disease.

After the use of Anthrax as weapon in secret terrorist attacks in America, the fear has grown about the use of other such agents as biological weapons. Ebola lists top among the potential viruses to be used in what’s called the “bioterrorism”. For reasons of security there is not much information publicly available as to how the virus can be employed in a terrorist attack. Scientists do believe that it is possible to change the Ebola virus for terrorist attacks but add that that’s not likely. It is difficult to do because first the virus must be airborne to be effective and second it has to be transported in a way that it is not harmful to those carrying it. Given the cases of medical personnel infecting themselves while treating patients, this seems highly unlikely that somebody might take such a risk.

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