Ebola Virus: Source, Transmission, and Public Health

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the Ebola virus, addressing its source and modes of transmission. It delves into the reasons behind the delayed development of an effective vaccine, highlighting issues such as lack of financial incentives and research priorities. The essay then compares the public health structures and prevention methods employed by richer and poorer countries in managing the disease, emphasizing the disparities in healthcare infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and community engagement. It underscores the global impact of Ebola outbreaks and the importance of robust, inclusive health systems for social stability and economic health, as well as the need for efficient surveillance and laboratory support. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for better healthcare systems in poorer countries to handle the spread of diseases and the importance of preparedness.

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

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have vaccines sitting in large bags, available to be tested at the start of the outbreak,’. The
researcher had stated in one of the recent public lecture is that they had not been able to make a
business case to different of the companies for investing on the development as well as licensing
of the Ebola vaccine which had the cost of about hundreds of millions of thousands (Kucharsiski
et al., 2016).
Research into the Ebola vaccine had been stated to have started a decade before to that of
the 2014 outbreak. The results had been promising but the progress had been found to be slow.
Researchers in the US as well as in the Canada had been seen to possess vaccine candidates who
had been proven to be 100 percent effective in protection of the primates from that of the virus
but they have not had any advancement to be treated and tested on that of the humans. The main
motive was criticized by many of the professionals who stated that the impetus behind the
research was not to save the different lives in that of the developing countries like that of Africa
but to defend the North Americans against any form of bio-terrorism attacks (Hossman et al.,
2017). The Jenner Institute had received funding from that of the World health organization
(WHO) in the year 2014 for accelerating the research and for developing the new vaccines as
well as for fast tracking the testing of the existing Ebola vaccines on the humans in response to
that of the 2014 outbreak. The outcome of WHO’s call was unprecedented. About a total of 13
Ebola vaccines candidates had began their clinical trials. One of the vaccine called the Merck’s
rVSV-ZEBOV had even progressed as far for demonstrating that its outcomes was effective as
well as safe (Caluwaerts et al., 2019). While on the other hand, Johnson & Johnson and
GlaxoSmithKline had been yet seen to be far into clinical trials. Therefore, it can be stated that
the vaccine were very much present, developed and were ready that could have saved huge

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number of lives in the 2014 outbreak but it was not introduced as it had not been tested on the
humans.
Another important aspect of the issue is the business mindedness and the industry
incentives which are the main concerns for the pharmacological industries. Gary Kobinger,
Director of the Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases at Laval University in Canada had
been already found to criticize this aspect stating that if the present state of condition depends on
the pharmaceutical] industry entirely, they might found out that the priorities of the industries are
not aligning with the priorities of the society at a particular time (Kim et al., 2015). He is
currently working on the development of the Ebola drug ZMapp as well as the rVSV-ZEBOV
vaccine at the Canadian National Microbiology lab which is now being developed by Merck. He
is of the opinion that countries that have money should come forward and put money for
supporting the projects.
Health management and prevention of the condition:
Ebola diseases had mainly affected the developing nations of Africa with that of the last
outbreak of 2014 creating havocs in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Libya. However, the healthcare
systems in the poor nations of Africa had failed miserably in handling the outbreak of Ebola
effectively. Firstly, poorer nations are mainly seen to have weak health systems that have basic
public health infrastructures in place that cannot stand the sudden shocks that come from climate
change, environmental disasters as well as with that of the runaway virus (Giesecke, 2017). It
had been seen that under the weight of the Ebola, health systems in the Liberia, Sierra Leone as
well as guinea had collapsed. People by that time had stopped receiving as well as seeking for

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healthcare for other disorders like that of the malaria which also caused more deaths yearly than
Ebola. In turn, the severity of the disorder often got compounded by fear and beyond the affected
countries which then caused schools, markets, airline, business as well as shipping roués got
closed (Edwards et al., 2018). Therefore, in those nations, the outbreak of Ebola that started as a
health crisis got snowballed in the humanitarian ground and this snowballed into the
humanitarian, social, economic and security crisis. It had been found that in the world of
radically enhanced inter-dependence, the consequences were felt on a global scale. This
evolution of the crisis had made one point very clear that WHO had always proposed
(Venkatraman et al., 2018). According to WHO, fair and inclusive health systems should form
the bedrock of social stability as well as resilience and economic health which are the
characteristics of the richer countries but not found in the poorer countries. Unlike the richer
countries, the poorer countries were to experience failure in the investment of the fundamental
infrastructures that leave countries with no backbone for standing up under the weight of the
shocks that the century is delivering with unprecedented frequency. Another important feature
that is often found in the richer countries but remain absent in the poorer countries for tackling
Ebola is the preparedness for handling the emergency situation and also the readiness in treating
the first confirmed case as the national emergency. The richer countries are mainly seen to have
proper surveillance and also laboratory support in place and also take swift action that help them
in defeating the virus before it had gained a foothold (Bitanihirwe, 2016).
Another important aspect that is stronger in the richer countries but weaker in the weaker
countries is the community engagement. It is one of the factors that underlie the success of all
other control measures. Studies are of the opinion that early reporting of symptoms, adherence
to recommended protective measures, contact tracing, and safe burials are critically dependent on

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the cooperative community. Only having sufficient amount of staffs and facilities in healthcare
sector is not enough (Cohen, 2017). In many of the poorer countries, it has been seen that
communities had tried to conceal bodies of affected individuals in their houses and bury their
bodies even when sufficient treatment beds as well as burial teams were available in their areas.
Therefore, importance of health literacy, education, proper communication and health promotion
programs are important which are more pronounced in richer nations than the poorer nations.
This would help in the effective management of Ebola.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it becomes clear that Ebola is a virus that had its first
outbreak in the year 1976 and mainly gets transmitted to people from that of wild animals and
spreads among the human population through human to human transmission. Although the
vaccines had been already prepared and ready to be introduced before 2014, lack of funding and
investments for licensing and developing the vaccines across the globe had mainly made the
2014 outbreak more dangerous one. The business-mindedness of the pharmaceutical industries of
the developed countries witnessed no gains in the circulation of the vaccines in the developing
countries and this had delayed the progress. Moreover, it was not tested on the humans in clinical
trial and this had prevented it to be used as the vaccines in 2014 outbreak. Richer countries are
able to manage or prevent this disease successfully because of their adequate staffing of health
workforce, proper information and research funding, medical technologies and products,
effective surveillance, proper communication and effective community engagement in
comparison to the poorer countries. Hence, these aspects need to be considered for developing a
healthcare environment which would help in tackling any health shocks or disaster that affect
human world.

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