Outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease: Is There a Cure for Ebola?

Ebola Virus Disease was known as hemorrhage fever which was discovered in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo. The symptom of the disease caused by Ebola are hemorrhage fever, sore throat, conjunctivitis, red eyes and many more. Because of the symptom, some experts may call it as scarlet fever. However, since the 2014 outbreak in West Africa, this disease is considered as a viral fever which must be prevented by understanding the vector viral.

Ebola was not becoming world’s consideration until the outbreak happened in 2014. Since then, the global health society put their attention by diagnosing the suspected patients. In the last three years, it has been reported so many cases about this hemorrhagic fever. First, it was noticed happening in Guinea and it was to be predicted spreading to Central and Western part of Africa. Because this fever seems similar with normal fever, many people did not realize about it. Consequently, the virus had been spread to Europe. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated this disease caused by Ebola virus as an epidemic.

Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever
(image is credited from cdc.gov)

Surprisingly, the Ebola virus has been reported not only to infect human but also the animals. Mostly, this virus infected the primate which can be a vector in spreading the disease. According to Bukreyev et al which was written on journal created by Elijah Ige Ohimain, there are five types of Ebola virus based on their genus. They are Zaire Ebola Virus, Sudan Ebola Virus, Bundibugyo Ebola Virus, Tai Forest Ebola Virus and Reston Ebola Virus. Interestingly, instead of infecting human, those viruses infect the non-human primate such as bats. Regarding of this discovery, health experts suggested that the vector is actually non-human primate.

However, if the bats were the main vector, how can Ebola Virus attacked the human and causing the hemorrhagic fever to people? The process of infecting was started firstly from the exchange of body fluids which is directly contacted to human skin either from sweat and saliva. Afterward, the spreading commenced with human contact through semen, blood, urine, and vomits. Maybe, during the animals-human infection, the bats ate the fruits which would be consumed by either the human or eaten-meat of animals in the future.

Unlike a normal fever, Ebola fever causes so many damage in human’s body including muscle pain, conjunctivitis, red eyes, internal and external bleeding and even more it resulted diarrhea. Mostly, this symptom will cause the dehydration and if it continuous for duration of time, it will damage the immune system of our body. However, the dilemma issue was concentrated on the medical treatments since among human this disease absolutely can infect via exchange of body fluids such as sweat.
Therefore, the curing method has been developing in many aspects. Based on the journal authorized by Elijah Ige Ohimain, Sullivan et.al., stated that there are four genes which has responsible in encoding the proteins and those are the cause of this hemorrhagic fever. They affected the structural feature of virion envelope glycoprotein, nucleoprotein, and 2 viral proteins of VP24 and VP40. Interestingly, the same paper wrote that the genetic code which is located on RNA dependent viral polymerase is affected by Ebola virus genes. Therefore, the advancement in curing the Ebola virus disease is absolutely located on the gene scale.

Many experts suggested that the best vaccines in preventing Ebola virus disease is throughout the virus’ genes. As a result, replication and recombination are the best method. One of this example which is in the middle of researching is recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus which is a gene of virus infected the animals. The others vaccines which are based on replication and recombination are rabies virus, recombinant cytomegalovirus and human parainfluenza virus type 3. Interestingly, even though the best medicine is based on genetic code, the experts around world try the non-replicating vaccines which means the virus replicated incompetently. They are adenovirus, Plasmic DNA which is injected inside the gene, virus like particles, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis virus, vaccinia virus and the last one is the conventional method of inactivated.

Ebola outbreak has been producing the fear in global society. Since it can be infected throughout exchange of body liquids, the medical treatment must be conducted in high-qualified facilities. Furthermore, while the vaccines are still being researched, we must begin the prevention procedure.