The Healthy Dose – Ebola, Part 3

 

Health in 1

 

By Parth Dwivedi

Recapping everything we have covered thus far, there are five different species of Ebolavirus, each with different characteristics. Once it infects a human host, the virus attacks the immune system and causes water loss, bleeding and organ failure.
Ebola has surfaced in the news before, although more recently an ongoing outbreak in Western Africa has been taking headlines and airtime across various media outlets. Dissecting this issue is difficult, as it unfolds into many complicated layers.
Many obstacles confront health specialists involved in the immediate treatment of Ebola overseas. To begin with, it is difficult to diagnose Ebola, as many of the symptoms in the initial phases resemble other, more manageable illnesses.
As a result of this, patients often do not come to aid centers for help until their symptoms have progressed to a very dangerous point. From there, an already uphill battle sinks farther into the trenches. More patients succumb to this illness, and aid centers slowly become known more as places where patients die than places where patients survive.
This reputation spreads and creates a cycle that causes more people to delay treatment, even once they begin thinking they might have Ebola. After all, knowing you had a disease, would you go to a hospital with a reputation for dead patients?
Other factors come into play, though. Foreign health specialists only get involved once a situation becomes dire. From a local person’s perspective dire situations seem to be linked with foreigners. Indeed, Dr. Fischer writes about “rumors claiming the white people brought Ebola…”
Superimpose on these factors the weak, local healthcare system that serves as the alternative to foreign aid centers and a bad situation becomes worse. But, is there a cure that these aid centers can even provide?
No. Although, certain experimental medications have been used sparingly. One such medication, ZMapp, was successfully used to treat two American missionaries, but no reliable, well-understood medication currently exists. This does not mean that Ebola is untreatable, however.
Dr. Paul Farmer, something of a celebrity physician in the world of international medicine, said in an interview with Democracy Now! that the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Western Africa reflects shortcomings in local healthcare systems more than it reflects the lethality of the infection itself.
He went on to say that if this infection came stateside, it would not spread very far, as the strength of our healthcare infrastructure would placate any outbreak very quickly. Of course the outbreak is serious, but it is not likely to become a direct threat to American citizens.

 

Parth Dwivedi has a B.A. in Neuroscience and an M.S. in Biomedical Sciences. He likes reading non-fiction and still watches I Love Lucy.

Parth Dwivedi has a B.A. in Neuroscience and an M.S. in Biomedical Sciences. He likes reading non-fiction and still watches I Love Lucy.