Ebola: Source, Transmission, and Vaccination Development

Running head: EBOLA
EBOLA
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
Ebola virus is responsible for creating an acute and serious illness which gets fatal when
not treated. EVD or the Ebola virus disease had first appeared in the year 1976 in two
simultaneous outbreaks. One of them took place in Nzara, South Sudan and the other in
Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo (Osmond, 2016). The latter occurred in the village
near the Ebola River from where the disorder takes the name. This assignment will mainly talk
about the source and transmission of the disorders. It would discuss why developing a
vaccination for the virus took a long time. It would also discuss the differences in public health
structures and prevention methods of richer and poorer countries in managing the disorder.
Source of condition and the ways it is transmitted:
Studies are of the opinion that people are initially infected with that that of the Ebola
virus through contacts with an infected animal like fruits bats or nonhuman primates. This is
termed as the spillover events. After that, the virus is seen to spread from person to person
potentially affecting a huge number of people. The virus is seen to spread through direct contact
like that through broken skin as well as mucous membranes in the eyes, mouth or the nose with
the help of different types of membranes (Goh et al., 2015). Blood or body fluids like that of
urine, saliva, vomit, breast milk, sweat, feces, and semen of an infected person or from a person
who has died from EVD is one of the medium of transmission. Objects like that of syringes and
needles that remain contaminated with the body fluids from that of the affected person or that of
the dead person due to EVD is another medium. Infected fruit bats or that of the non-human
primates like that of monkeys and apes may also act as sources for the spreading of the disorder.
Many of the studies have also opined semen of infected persons who had recovered from EVD

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during the various types in sex like oral, vaginal, or anal sex can become one of the ways of
spreading the infection. The virus is seen to remain in many of the bodily fluids like that of
semen of a patient who have recovered from EVD even when they show no symptoms of severe
illness (Soka et al., 2016). It should however be noted that this virus can never be transmitted
through food. However, in many of the countries, this virus might be transferred through the
handling as well as consumption of the bush-meat like that of the wild animals that are hunted
for food. There had been no evidences that this virus gets transmitted by mosquitoes pr that by
other insects.
Firstly, when infected by the virus of Ebola, they would show no signs and symptoms of
the ailment from that time only. Studies have found out that this virus cannot spread to others
until the person develops any signs and symptoms of the EVD. It is only after the infected person
by EVD starts showing symptoms and signs of the illness, they become able to spread the
infection to that of the others. Secondly, there remains no risk of a healthy person to get infected
with the virus through that of the casual contact with that of the survivor. However, the virus
might still remain in certain of the body fluids of the patients and continue to spread to the others
after the person had recovered from that of the infection (Waheed et al., 20190. The virus is seen
to persist in the breast milk, semen, spinal column fluid and even in the ocular eye fluid. The
specific areas of the body that are seen to contain this form of fluids are known as the
immunologically privileged sites. Studies are of the opinion that these specific sites are those
regions of the body where viruses and pathogens like that of the Ebola virus can get undetected
even after the immune system successfully clear the virus from the other sites of the body.
Scientists are seen still to uncover the fact about how long the virus stays in these body fluids
among the different Ebola survivors (Schultz et al., 2016). Third, serologic studies have put

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forward much important information. Ebola virus is detected in cats and dogs that live in the
areas where Ebola outbreak had taken place. However, there had been no reports of this virus
spreading through cats and dogs where they get affected themselves or spreading disease to
humans. Certain exotic animals and unusual pets like that apes, pigs and monkeys have higher
risk for being affected with the virus and spreading it when they get exposed to it. Pigs are the
only species of livestock that can get affected by Ebola virus (Mate et al., 2015). In the nation of
china and Philippines, pigs are found to be naturally infected with Ebola Reston virus which does
not cause illness in people.
Reasons for Ebola taking time for vaccination development:
The Ebola outbreak had cause immense suffering and pain on a catastrophic level and
had infected about 28000 people killing of about 11000 people in the outbreak of 2014-2016.
One of the key reasons for all this form of suffering was the lack and absence of licensed
vaccines in the present day market. From the time of first identification of the virus namely
Ebola in the year 1976, there had been also around killing of 1500 people in the 26 outbreaks
which is about 705 of the people who had been infected (Siedner et al., 2017). Still, research and
development of that of the Ebola vaccine had been found to be subjected to long delays. One of
the aspects of selfishness identified globally is that producing vaccines as well as drugs for a
disorder that mainly affects the developing countries had not been considered a lucrative
business by many nations.
Adrian Hill who is an internationally acclaimed scientist of the Oxford University heads
the Jenner Institute for public sector vaccine development. He had clearly stated that “we did