Ebola Hemorrhagic Heartbreaks

The article I chose to review is “Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks: strategies for effective epidemic management, containment and control”, written by Gerard Matua, Dirk Van der Wal, and Rozzano Locsin. The main point of the article is to discuss the current strategies being used to control Ebola epidemics and provide recommendations for new methods that may improve containment times. The article distinguishes between “reactive” approaches, and “pre-emptive” strategies, reactive approaches being the ones that are most commonly utilized in cases of outbreaks. The authors argue that pre-emptive strategies would decrease the need for reactive approaches by decreasing the overall threat and impact of the epidemic in the first place. The key question

Matua, Wal, and Locsin define Ebola Virus Disease (EBV) as “the human disease caused by infection of the single stranded RNA viruses of the genus ‘Ebola’ and family ‘Filoviridae’.” EVD begins with a high fever, headache, muscle aches, sore throat, shivers, hiccups, and fatigue. It progresses to vomiting, difficulty breathing, diarrhea, conjunctivitis, and abdominal pain; eventually, EVD results in multiple organ failure, hypovolemic shock, and death in an alarming amount of cases, up to 90% depending on the viral species (Matua, Wal, & Locsin, 2015). For those that are lucky enough to escape death, the current disease management plan, according to the article, “consists of supportive therapy to revive infected patients, minimizing infection transmission, and calming anxious populations”. Due to the high mortality rate of the disease, and the lack of a cure, Ebola outbreaks lead to panic and chaos that is only heightened by negative media attention highlighting extreme

It is stated that, “direct contact among humans occurs during funerals, as part of ritual handling of corpses, as a major mode of interfamilial transmission”. The article also points out that healthcare workers caring for infected patients often don’t have sufficient protective measures due to supply shortages and poverty, which, in turn, puts them at a high risk of contracting the disease. Apart from human-to-human transmission, it is also possible to obtain EBV from infected wild animals, infected bush meat, and infected bat secretions. Eating and interacting with wild animals is something that has to be addressed from a cultural standpoint. It is a huge health concern for not only the spread of Ebola, but other infectious diseases as well; however, the people engaging in these activities either do not know, or do not care, about the possible negative outcomes that can result from this