Is Ebola Outbreak a Global Health Disaster?
By
Charles Ogallo.
Fear
of Ebola Outbreak has engulfed the entire world with increasing cases of
infections and death from the deadly virus being reported daily across Africa.
Health
workers across the globe have been put on high alert as World Health
Organization WHO classifies several countries in Africa mainly West Africa as
high risk areas for the deadly Ebola stain.
West
African nations have been struggling to control both the deadly outbreak and
the fear it has created.
WHO at
a press conference in Nairobi, Kenya Wednesday named Kenya among African
nations vulnerable to Ebola outbreak as a result of being major
transport hubs in the region receiving 76 flights a week.
The
U.N. health agency says 1,013 people have died so far in the
Ebola outbreak in West Africa of the 1,848 suspected or confirmed cases
recorded by authorities. The killer virus is spread by direct contact with
bodily fluids like blood, diarrhea and vomit.
However more questions than answers are being raised as to
whether the current Ebola strain could have come from illegally-trafficked
apes.
According to Mongabay.org, the original
explanation for the virus breaking out in this remote part of southeastern
Guinea, near the borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia, was that people had eaten
infected bush-meat.
"Fruit bats are thought to be the natural reservoir of
all strains of Ebola virus, and they can pass it on to other species in various
ways, including through their feces, dropping pieces of half-eaten fruit that
other animals eat, or by being butchered and eaten themselves as
bush-meat" Says the report.
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