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Severity of Ebola

The first outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease took place in 1976 first in Sudan, then in Zaire. The disease can be fatal in majority of the cases. It is a viral fever which can get extremely severe in humans and primates. The virus affected around 284 people when it took place for the first time and it took toll over the lives of 53% of its victims. The second time it affected around 318 people and had the highest mortality rate among the viral diseases. The mortality rate was 88% in Zaire. The cause of such deadly disease could not be found as researchers kept trying to find the origin of the virus. In 1989, the third strain of disease, the Ebola Reston (EBOR) was identified for the first time. Monkeys that were imported from Reston were found to be infected with Ebola virus.
Till now, Ebola has caused about 4493 deaths and the count of its victims is as high as 8998, according to World Health Organization (WHO). WHO still believes that the numbers can be 2.5 times the numbers that have been reported. Since, the mortality rate in victims of Ebola is very high, the disease has startled the scientists and researchers. The treatment of Ebola has still not been found and the number of victims gets larger than the quantity of experimental medicine. The source of the virus has now been identified to be the American fruit bats. People who live around the tropical rainforest are the ones who get mostly affected by Ebola. The virus spreads through infected animals to humans by coming in close contact with the bodily fluids or blood of the infected animal. Eating meat of the infected animals is the most common way of transmission of virus.
The disease has initial symptoms like muscle pain, stomach ache, bruises or rashes on skin. In a few days the symptoms start to get severe with vomiting, watery diarrhea, internal or extremely. Since the disease spreads rapidly, the health care workers had to wear proper protection aid while handling Ebola patients.

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