Should People Be Really Scared of Ebola?

Ebola is known to be a severe and often fatal virus disease if not treated as soon as possible. The Ebola virus disease (EVD) causes symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, rash, fever fatigue, and even bleeding out from every opening of your body. The disease is also sought to come from bats. 

The largest outbreak of Ebola recorded was in the month of March 2014 in west Africa with an estimated of more than 3,850 people dead. 

According to the World Health Organization, "The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have very weak health systems, lacking human infrastructural resources, having only recently emerged from long period of conflict instability." This means that Ebola is so common in west Africa because they lack the gear and equipment to help those who are infected by the disease. 

Ebola is also spread rapidly in west Africa due to the way they bury their dead. People in west Africa usually bury their dead in a traditional way that includes a lot of touching and kissing. The people that died due to Ebola still contain the disease and it is still possible to spread even though their bodies are dead or alive. 

An obvious solution to prevent further expansion of the disease is to create better facilities in the west Africa with better equipment that will hopefully help decrease the death toll. This solution will of course need a lot of funding for the medical equipment used to help care for Ebola patients aren't cheap and will cost millions of dollars to fund. 

The World Health Organization is also currently working on better routines to help deal with the outbreak of the virus. This is needed because some of the health-care workers that help with the disease in west Africa have died or have been infected with Ebola. 

Ebola is sought to be only transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, such as saliva. Ebola is not airborne which means that the virus diseases will not spread through the air. Although there have been some speculation on whether or not the virus has mutated  into being airborne. 

As reported by Dina Fine Maron, "...there is no indication that Ebola is mutating in a way that could allow it to make the leap from becoming transmittable via contact with bodily fluids (as it is now) to become a germ that could be transmitted by breathing the same are."

There are more serious viruses that people should be aware of that can be more easily spread than Ebola; viruses that are airborne. An example of an airborne virus is Influenza, which is also known as the Flu. 

People shouldn't be acting crazy for the spread of Ebola because most likely, the countries they live at have the right facilities and medical equipment to deal with such a virus disease. Unlike, countries in west Africa that suffer from lack of better routines, medical equipment, facilities, and etc. that contribute to the increase in the death toll from Ebola. 

Picture of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) from www.dailymail.co.uk