Beginning in March of 2014, the largest Ebola outbreak in history hit West Africa, affecting several countries and keeping the entire world on its toes. Not until August did the World Health Organization declare this outbreak to be a global emergency, nearly five months into the epidemic. In just six months, there had been “more than eighteen hundred confirmed Ebola deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone” alone (Sun 2014). Not only was Ebola a rapid spreading and deadly disease, but there also was seemingly no coordinated global response to it; no one was realizing how serious this disease could be – not only to Africa, but to the entire world. Finally, with these extreme numbers hitting the public, U.S. officials realized that this was not just another outbreak of the flu and decided that calling on the military was essential to begin to control this rapid-fire infection. Obama eventually sent three thousand military personal to West Africa where they would be joined by health workers from Britain, China and Cuba. Other countries including Canada and Japan also stepped in to contribute protective gear and mobile laboratories. Finally, the world was banning together to fight against this “zombie” disease. However, it seemed that the world had acted just a hair too late; in early October a Liberian man tested positive for the virus in a hospital in Texas. Previously, Ebola outbreaks had been taken down immediately and with ease, so why was this outbreak so different? Frankly, no one understood the potential severity and scale of this pathogen until it was almost too late, not even those affected by it.
This mysterious disease actually began in a small village in Guinea on the 26th of December, 2013, but it took three months, and several cases, before it was identified as Ebola on March 21st, 2014. The very first victim: an eighteen-month-old who “developed an illness characterized by fever, black stools, and vomiting… and died two days later” (WHO 2015). Most of the surrounding forests in the young boy’s hometown of Meliandou – estimated at around 80% – have been destroyed by foreign mining and other timber operations. This destruction had undoubtedly brought several infected wild animals to the area and closer to human life, specifically the bat species that is thought to be the original carrier of Ebola. Apparently, before the illness took hold of the young boy and his life, he was seen “playing in his backyard near a hollow tree heavily infested with bats” (WHO 2015). Soon following the boy’s death came the death of his immediate family, then the death of the medical workers who had cared for them and extended family who had attended their funerals. Both of these groups of people had returned to their homes after being exposed to the deadly disease, and ultimately began a chain of exposure that would spread across the country and the world. Because of its symptomatic similarities to cholera, it was originally thought that this severe and fatal diarrhea was cholera, however there was no hard evidence proving so. More and more medical personnel were brought in to try and figure this disease out, and with the thought that it was a bacterial infection, even more fingers began to point at cholera. Because this disease was originally thought to be cholera, it was treated as so; there was no protection given to any of the people treating the infected patients or to any of the other patients at the various hospitals. So, the infection continued to spread, taking more and more lives by the day. When the disease continued to spread rapidly, and the number of bodies began to add up, staff at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa opened an Emergency Management System event. Yes, action was finally being taken, but they opened this event for what they suspected was Lassa fever. It wasn’t until March 22nd, 2014 that a laboratory in France could confirm that the agent was in fact Ebola, and of the most lethal species: Zaire.
Ebola viruses (EVD) are enveloped, nonsegmented, RNA negative stranded viruses stemming from the family of Filoviridae. This virus itself has a pleomorphic filamentous morphology. Ebola spreads so easily because the “glycoproteins form trimeric spikes on the viral envelope mediating the viral adsorption to the cell membrane” (Cenciarelli 2015). Ebola creates four soluble glycoproteins which seem to be involved with viral pathogenesis, as they target cell activation. A representation of the virus can be seen below. Ebola was first discovered in 1976 in two different outbreaks taking place in Zaire, and Sudan. It was determined that they were two different forms of EVD and were named after their home nations. The EVD species that caused so much turmoil in this outbreak, as I stated earlier, is that of Zaire (EBOV). This outbreak was completely unprecedented in terms of number of cases and size of the spread. On December 31st, 2014 there was a total of 20,200 confirmed cases of EBOV, and this was still not the end. Sadly, the end would not be seen for years.
It’s December of 2016, three years after a little boy caught EBOV playing in his backyard, and this extremely deadly epidemic is finally coming to a close. The experimental vaccine showed to provide complete protection against the disease, meaning that the spread of it could finally be stopped. However, the vaccine only protects from one of the two most common forms of EVD, EBOV. Also, the vaccine is a bit flawed and needs further modification, as some of those who had it administered reported side effects including joint pain and headaches. The vaccination trial used the “ring vaccination” technique that was developed during the fight against smallpox. This technique was administered by contacting everyone in an infected individual’s “ring” after their case was confirmed and offering them a vaccine. This included family, friends, neighbors and caregivers. For now, Ebola has been taken care of. However, only time will tell when the next outbreak will occur, and what else could be lurking out there, waiting to take down the entire human race.