Rob.Carr@f53.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Rob Carr) (12/05/89)
As some of you may remember, I have used the Ebola virus as a comparison to
HIV. Mostly because it is perhaps the nastiest disease known and because I
thought that it was pretty non-existant (with the exception of some frozen
samples in Atlanta, Paris, and Moscow).
An article in the 12/01/89 Pittsburh Press from the Washington Post states that
a shipment of monkeys imported from the Philippines and taken to a research lab
in Reston, Va was found to be infected with the Ebola virus. No humans have
been known to have contracted the disease.
Ebola, which has a 2-21 day incubation period and is between 50-90% fatal
(possibly depending on substrain types) results in fever followed by internal
hemmorhaging and organ failure. The two known outbreaks were in Zaire (1976)
and the Sudan (1979).
Known transmission routes are blood, bodily fluids, and aerosol. Most articles
I have read place the infectiveness of this agent up there with the common
cold, although the article in the Press states that the disease is "not
normally transmitted by casual contact...."
Ebola is different from HIV, especially in that it can be transmitted by casual
contact. Any transmission route for HIV, however, would also apply to Ebola.
We've talked on this board about quarantining, the rights of patients to
medical treatment, fear, lack of education, and safer sex. How these will be
applied, should Ebola break out, remain to be seen. Perhaps not , if we're
lucky.
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