Ebola and You.

Ebola and You.
What is it? How does it effect the body? And more importantly, what are the absolutely most vile, gruesome, and macabre things about this virus? (Its why you're reading this...right?)

First, some background information. Ebola itself is a filo virus, which means that it's structure resembles that of a thread. It was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Ebola River (hence its name) in 1976. Various outbreaks of this virus occurred, and in each of them, the death rate was extremely high, between 50%-90%. This awesome deadly virus is transmitted most commonly through bodily fluids. For example, say hypothetically that you have the Ebola Virus, and you kiss your boyfriend/girlfriend passionately. Congrats! You just passed the Ebola Virus! And here I thought cooties didn't exist... But don't fret. No serious outbreak has been seen in the United States. And rejoice if you're a monkey, because a vaccine has been developed for you!


Symptoms
Now onto the fun part! Like most viruses, symptoms won't appear the moment you contract the virus. They need a certain period of incubation time. Ebola typically has a 5-10 day incubation time. After this wait, a person will have an extremely high fever (around 101.8°F), head aches, muscle/joint pains, and other nasty things. Oh, and did I mention internal and external bleeding? And this is just the initial stage!

As Ebola progresses, more serious symptoms occur (As if it couldn't be any worse than bleeding from your very pores!). These include bloody diarrhea/vomit, low blood pressure, and tachycardia. As you can see, Ebola is known for being a very bloody disease. In fact, many victims of the Ebola virus usually undergo much hemorrhaging, and bleed from various parts of the body, such as the nose, mouth, etc. Since Ebola also disrupts the platelets in your blood, clotting is not possible, so the victim keeps bleeding.

Effected Body Systems
Many body systems are effected by the Ebola virus. The most obvious being the Cardiovascular System. As previously mentioned, blood platelets , as well as white blood cells, are attacked by Ebola, thus causing much damage. Another system effected is the Integumentary system. While bleeding profusely, this also causes damage from the orifices that you are bleeding from, mostly from the skin. Muscular System is also affected, from the initial system of the Ebola virus, in which the muscles are really sore.

Sources:
Blackman, James A. "filovirus." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2009. Grolier Online. 2 Oct. 2009 .

"Ebola virus." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2009. Grolier Online. 2 Oct. 2009 .

Winters, Wendell D. "Virus." Encyclopedia Americana. 2009. Grolier Online. 2 Oct. 2009 .

http://www.andrewstella.com/images/Diseases/Images/ebola.jpg

Note: I apologize for not too many pictures being posted. It wasn't that I was too lazy (Seriously!), it's just that pictures of Ebola Victims are really graphic and I didn't want my fellow classmates to judge me (Well...any more than they do). If you really do wish to see them, just do a Google Image. But, really, its gross. Don't do it. You have been forewarned.