March 26, 2014

expert reaction to outbreak of Ebola in Guinea

Guinea has experienced one of the biggest outbreaks of Ebola in recent times.

Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:

“Outbreaks of Ebola are rare but not unusual in sub-Saharan Africa.

“How fatal the infections are likely to be depends on the strain of virus, and early suggestions are that the current outbreak is caused by a fairly severe form called Ebola Zaire. Certainly the fairly high death-rate would support this.

 “The current outbreak has occurred in a forested area – it is thought that humans pick the virus up from an infected animal host, often primates. Ebola also kills primates – history has suggested massive ape die-offs because of Ebolavirus.

 “But these animals aren’t likely to be the true reservoir – we don’t know for certain, but it’s probably bats that are the natural host.

 “The last outbreaks were seen in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012, where there were a total of around 60 confirmed cases.

 “There are five species of the virus.”

Dr Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading, said:

“Ebolavirus is one of the deadliest killers known to mankind, and is especially dangerous because it can spread between people through infected bodily fluids.  This latest outbreak of ebolavirus puts a massive strain on the fragile public health infrastructure of Guinea and neighbouring countries. At the moment, this is a fairly isolated outbreak, and there is currently no risk to the health of people in the UK.

 “The virus attacks white blood cells, which store up the chemical and protein weaponry that your body would normally use in small doses to fight infection.  But when ebolavirus latches on, the white blood cells dump their entire arsenals at once, causing massive damage to the cells that line your blood vessels.  This causes fluid and later blood to begin to leak out of veins and arteries.

 “Although there are a number of experimental compounds that seem to help fight the virus, we don’t yet know if any of these are safe enough to use in people.  We may not know the full extent of this outbreak for some weeks, since Ebola fever starts with mild flu-like symptoms, and can take weeks to fully reveal itself.

 “If you catch Ebolavirus, your chances of survival are typically 50/50, although sometimes the odds can be as low as 9 to 1 against survival.  Part of what can swing the odds in your favour is access to modern health care technology. However, many of the places that the virus strikes lack the hospitals, doctors and even paved roads that make health care work.

 “Ebolavirus is one of the things that keep public health officials up at night.  If this virus spread between people more easily, it would probably be more deadly than the black plague. Fortunately, up to this point, it has not.”