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Ebola On The Rise

Health Care | September 9, 2014
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Excel Sheet

Ebola virus disease (Ebola) is a severe, often fatal illness in humans. Ebola outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%. The virus outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.

According to the data of World Health Organization (WHO), the latest outbreak has already affected more than 4,269 people (probable, confirmed and suspected cases) causing at least 2,288 deaths mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone deaths (data as of Sep 6, 2014).

Ebola first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, in Nzara, Sudan, and in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter was in a village situated near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.

The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus