Life
Ebola: West African Health Ministers hold emergency meeting in Ghana
The Ebola outbreak in three West African countries is already the deadliest to date with over 500 fatalities, and is expected to be the longest on record. West African health ministers have met in Ghana to draw up a regional response to the outbreak of disease.
There is no cure for the deadly disease caused by the Ebola virus which has an incubation period of two to 21 days and starts with fever and fatigue before descending into headaches, vomiting, violent diarrhea and then multiple organ failure and massive internal bleeding.
Ebola was first reported in 1976 and is named for the river where it was recognized. The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.
Ebola kills more than half of its victims and treatment largely consists of keeping the patient hydrated as the disease runs its course. Combating Ebola is a matter of stopping its spread by educating people on how to protect themselves and isolating the sick and dead — since corpses are still contagious — and figuring out who the infected had contact with in order to isolate them as well.
The first case of the outbreak was identified in Guinea on March 21 and since then there have been a total of 396 cases – it has spread beyond the remote rural areas to the capital city of Conakry. Experts say the outbreak may have begun as far back as January. Ebola typically begins in remote places and it can take several infections before the disease is identified, making a precise start date virtually impossible to pin down.
Education has been the main strategy of fighting the spread and Guinea has used radio and television spots telling people how to stay safe from the disease and urging them to immediately go to hospitals if they are sick. One of the main goals is to explain to people how to deal with the dead: Washing the corpse of a victim before burial, as is customary, can transmit the disease.
Volunteers, including survivors of the disease have been recruited in the campaign to educate people, which is also targeting community and religious leaders. Treatment centers have been set up in the outbreak areas and regional health officials are working to boost the capacity of the labs needed to confirm the virus’s presence.
Soon after the outbreak was identified in Guinea, it appeared just across the border in neighboring Liberia on March 30, the country has been the least hit with just 63 cases.
The country’s Health Ministry has set up treatment centers and started a public service campaign to slow the spread of the disease, including training health professionals to use protective clothing while forbidding hospitals to turn away patients with Ebola symptoms. They also have forbidden possible victims to be buried without being first tested and issued a death certificate to ensure that there is proper reporting of who has been affected by the disease and who they have been in contact with.
Ebola was identified in Sierra Leone in late May just as it had been hoped the outbreak in Guinea and Liberia was winding down. It has since spread to at least two districts with 176 cases claiming at least 46 lives.
Like the other countries, Sierra Leone formed a national task force with daily meetings and set up treatment centers in the affected areas.
Sierra Leone’s Health Ministry has also warned people that sheltering the infected is a crime and lamented that people were escaping from hospitals and hiding.
Source: Associated Press