Ebola virus disease is another name for VIRAL HAEMORRHAGIC FEVER. The ebola virus is one of the most virulent micro-organisms known. Like the marburg virus (see MARBURG DISEASE), it belongs to the ?lovirus group which originates in Africa. Increased population mobility and wars have meant that the infection occasionally occurs elsewhere, with air travellers developing symptoms on returning home.
Treatment As the disease can be neither prevented nor cured, treatment is supportive, with strict anti-infection procedures essential as human-to-human transmission can occur via skin and mucous-membrane contacts. Incubation period is 5–10 days. Fever with MYALGIA and headache occur initially, often accompanied by abdominal and chest symptoms. Haemorrhagic symptoms soon develop and the victim either starts to improve in the second week or develops multi-organ failure and lapses into a coma. Mortality ranges from 25 to 90 per cent.... ebola virus disease
A dangerous and highly contagious viral infection that causes severe haemorrhaging from the skin and mucous membranes. Ebola fever occurs predominantly in Africa. There is no specific treatment for the disease, which is fatal in many cases.... ebola fever
a virus responsible for an acute infection in humans with features similar to those of *Marburg disease. Transmission is by contact with infected blood and other body fluids and the incubation period is 2–21 days (7 days on average). The mortality rate is 53–88%, but intensive treatment (including rehydration) in the early stages of the disease can halt its rapid and usually irreversible progression to haemorrhaging of internal organs. Until recently, sporadic but short-lived outbreaks have occurred in Africa since 1976, when the virus was first identified during an outbreak in the region of the Ebola river, in Zaïre (now Democratic Republic of Congo). A major epidemic of the disease broke out in West Africa at the end of 2013 and lasted until May 2016: over 11,000 people died. An unknown species of animal – possibly a fruit bat – is assumed to act as a reservoir for the virus between outbreaks of the disease in humans.... ebola virus
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