Introduction
Disease outbreaks are very common in the world, and often when they occur, the result is, usually, the death of many people and the infection of many others. In many instances, those who are cured, usually, have to live with the effects of the disease for the rest of their lives. Some diseases are predictable while others are very hard to predict. Departments concerned with public health are tasked with the role of coming up with effective strategies to curb the further spread of the disease once an outbreak has been discovered. The fact that most outbreaks that are reported involving highly communicable diseases has made public health authorities takes extra measures. This paper examines the recent outbreak of the deadly disease, Ebola in the West African nation of Liberia. The focus will be on the disease history, the pathophysiology of the disease including signs and symptoms and precaution measures. These will be explained using the epidemiological triangle.
History of Ebola
Ebola is a fatal haemorrhagic fever illness. The disease was first reported in the year 1976 in the African countries of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Legrand ET AL, 2007). The disease acquired its name from the very first outbreak that happened along the Ebola River in the DRC. There has been a series of complex outbreaks since then. The disease has caused deaths especially in West African countries. Starting from Guinea, the disease spread to bordering countries including Sierra Leone, Senegal and Liberia (WHO, 2004). The most recent case of an outbreak was reported in March 2014 in Liberia. Many world health observers including the WHO (World Health Organization) have identified the extremely weak health systems of the country as one of the primary contributors to this outbreak. However, political instability and endless conflicts have also played a role.
Signs and Symptoms
The signs of the Ebola virus start to show two to three days after one makes contact with an infected individual. Symptoms are unnoticeable immediately and during the first as well as the second day. The patient will start experiencing an intense fever, muscle pains and a sore throat. The infected individual also starts experiencing severe headaches. This is followed by diarrhea, rashes on the body and frequent vomiting. These symptoms are as a result of a decrease in the functionality of vital body functional units and organs such as the kidney and liver. It is at this instant that the infected person begins to bleed both internally and externally through the body openings such as ears, the nose amongst others ((Day, 2001). The disease spreads mainly through contact. The virus is transferred to a person who comes into contact with fluids from an infected person. This fluid may include blood, saliva, urine and even sweat. Accurate diagnosis of the Ebola disease is only possible via extensive screening of viral antibodies because apart from the bleeding, the disease symptoms are similar to those of cholera and malaria.
Epidemiological triangle
The Epidemiology triangle has three components. These are the Host, the Agent and Environment. They occupy the three corners of the epidemiological triangle with the Host at the top with Environment and Agent following in that order. These components help in disease analysis to predict its patterns and from this, medics can take action to counter potential outbreaks. Agents are the objects that cause the health problem. Hosts are the people/living organisms through which the disease is spread while the Environment refers to the physical surroundings.
Agent
The agent of the Ebola virus disease is the Ebola virus. This virus belongs to the family of organisms known as Filoviridae disease. In the case of the outbreak experienced in Liberia, research indicated that a relatively new strain of the species known as ZEBOV was the major causative agent of the disease outbreak (WHO, 2014).
Host
The Ebola disease has several hosts with one of them being fruit bats belonging to the Pteropodiatae family (Day, 2013). In the case of Liberia, the fruit bat was not the only host of the diseases. Other hosts included infected animals such as gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, and forest antelopes. The disease penetrated the human population when the blood and the fluids of these animals came into contact with humans and from there; humans spread the disease amongst themselves (WHO, 2014). Before the government gained full control of the situation, people were heavily mixing and spreading the disease.
Environment
The physical surroundings of Liberia highly contributed to the outbreak of the disease. Again, as mentioned earlier, the country’s health systems are very poor and are, therefore, highly prone to communicable outbreaks. Even after the outbreak, there was still much non-balance when it came to environmental factors. Poor water and sewage systems as well dust handling could have been some of the environmental factors that a role in the disease outbreak.
Communicability
Statistics released by from the World Health Organization show that 834 cases of Ebola have been reported in Liberia since the outbreak of the disease. Out of these, two thousand and sixty-nine cases have resulted in death (WHO 2014). These statistics suggest that the disease is highly communicable. Because it is spread via fluid contact, if population control is not done, for example, through quarantine, the disease could infect a large population in a very short time (Legrand et al., 2007). In Liberia for instance, travel restrictions were not initiated early enough to contain the situation at hand. People in the affected areas continued to have close contact and this caused fast spread of the disease in the initial days of the outbreak.
Disease Management Modalities
Disease management modalities are essential in controlling a disease outbreak event. There are different models of controlling an outbreak. The first is to contain the agent. This calls for screening of the entire population to establish the extent of disease spread and then taking action (Legrand et al., 2007). The second model is to treat the infected whenever a diagnosis is made. This is however less effective since it does not prevent further spread (Legrand et al., 2007). Finally, authorities can initiate close surveillance of the disease. This could be done through providing vaccination where applicable at the same time maintaining the state’s health standards to satisfactory levels (Legrand ET AL, 2007).
Conclusion
Like any other disease outbreak, the Ebola outbreak in Liberia has led to high levels of tension in the society. The disease seems to be limited to West Africa at the moment, but appropriate measures are needed in order to prevent the further spread of the disease to other regions in the world (WHO, 2014). Regional health systems need to be strengthened. This can be done with the help of international health organizations such as WHO in association with local public health institutions. Unless this is done in the near future, more outbreaks of the disease might be experienced even to regions outside Africa. In fact, the first case of the Ebola has been reported in the United States. In fact, this individual who has been found with the disease in the United States had just come from Liberia and this raises questions about the effectiveness of preventive strategies that are meant to counter the spread of the disease. For instance, how did such an individual pass through airport security in spite of the fact that he had come from a country where there was an Ebola outbreak?
References
Day, C. (2013). Tracking Ebola virus within host cells. Physics Today, 66(1), 19.
Legrand, J., Grais, R., Boelle, P., Valleron, A., & Flahault, A. (2007). Understanding the dynamics of Ebola epidemics. Epidemiology and Infection, 135(04), 610.
WHO | Ebola virus disease. (2014, September). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/
