ebola – The Hilltop Monitor https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu The Official Student Publication of William Jewell College Mon, 26 Jun 2023 16:08:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cropped-3-32x32.png ebola – The Hilltop Monitor https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu 32 32 Headlines: Ebola https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/headlines-ebola/ https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/headlines-ebola/#respond Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:00:03 +0000 https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/?p=2750 The Ebola breakout in West Africa started  March 2014, but interest peaked in the United States in September and October. The United States focused on the impact of Ebola within the country and not the impact internationally. The outbreak here started with Thomas Duncan, who contracted the disease after traveling in Africa and was the first person to be diagnosed in the United States. The story of Dr. Craig Spencer, who contracted the disease while working with Ebola patients in Guinea, was treated in the United States, and survived was another closely followed story. Due to a widespread panic about Ebola across the country, the White House released information about how Ebola is spread and claimed that the United States has the best healthcare in the world and was prepared to respond to other cases.

Since the start of the outbreak, there have been more than 21,000 reported cases and 8,800 deaths worldwide. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the outbreak started in rural Guinea when a toddler contracted Ebola. The disease spread to village healthcare workers and then to Liberia and Sierra Leone through trade routes. Because of this, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are the three most effected countries in West Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the weekly numbers of cases reported have dropped significantly. Although this sounds positive, there is still a chance of resurgence in the number of cases. WHO says tracing those who have been exposed to Ebola patients is key to preventing the spread of Ebola and tracing needs to be intensified in rural areas.

A potentially effective vaccine is being tested and cases are decreasing in West Africa. The vaccine was developed by British company GlaxoSmithKline and the US National Institutes of Health. A limited number of doses of the vaccine are being tested in Liberia on volunteers. Before the vaccine can be mass distributed it needs to be labeled safe and effective by WHO. The vaccine has been safely tested on healthy people in unaffected countries, but for WHO to know if it effectively prevents Ebola it needs to be tested in the hardest hit countries. With the number of reported cases per week falling, it will be harder to track the effectiveness of the vaccine. WHO and other health organizations are saying the development of this vaccine is not just important for the current Ebola outbreak, but for future outbreaks.

Researchers at the Pasteur Institute in France have recently expressed concern over the possibility of mutation of the Ebola virus. Researchers have been tracking the changes in the virus since the beginning of the outbreak. Several cases have been reported asymptomatic, which could indicate that the virus has mutated to be less deadly, but more contagious. Mutations of viruses can change how they are transmitted and the response to vaccines and drugs. Track the changes in the virus in comparison to the survival rate (which currently stands at about 40 percent) is allowing the Pasteur Institute to work on a vaccine to be distributed worldwide. The Pasteur Institute hopes their vaccine will be in human trials by the end of 2015.

]]> https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/headlines-ebola/feed/ 0 Hilltop Voices: Cole Allee on U.S. reaction to Ebola https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/hilltop-voices-cole-allee-on-u-s-reaction-to-ebola/ https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/hilltop-voices-cole-allee-on-u-s-reaction-to-ebola/#respond Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:00:12 +0000 https://hilltopmonitor.jewell.edu/?p=2910 Cole Allee discusses the reaction of the United States to the Ebola outbreak.

The Guinea Ministry of Health announced an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever March 25, 2014.  Seven months later and the United States has just started to talk about it. Like anything else in the United States, we are only focused on with which we have to deal.  The three confirmed cases of Ebola in the United States have lead to massive overreactions by the press and members of the government. This has caused unjustified fear among civilians and even sparked conspiracy theories, because what insignificant American problem is complete without the fear of conspiracy?  Here’s the problem: there have been over 9200 cases of Ebola announced in the countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in the past seven months.  Even though Ebola has only been in America for one month, there has been an average of 1314 cases announced every month in West Africa.

So why are Americans worried about Ebola? Some of us are overly-worried about the stress of this disease on our economy and the so called “tyrannical actions” of President Obama, but in reality this is nothing but another ploy by many right-wing newscasters and politicians to gain support for their conservative agenda.

Great efforts have been made by groups such as the United States Agency for International in West Africa Development to help treat the affected people and to prevent further spread of Ebola, but they need more support. The most effective way to help is to change the lens through which we are viewing this disease.  Our ignorance of the outbreak has caused it to spread here, and setting our sights on the countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will stop further spread there and in any other country that could become affected.  As a nation, we need to turn our focus away from ourselves and focus on the real issue in Africa.

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