1. A PRESENTATION BY: DETTA MOHAMAD ALNAAL JAMES BURGESS BUROOJ MUSHTAQ ANIMAN RANDHAWA Assignment 2: Ebola

3. Question: What is the mechanism that allows a newly emerging virus only infectious to humans under extreme circumstances to become the cause of an epidemic as dangerous and lethal as Ebola has recently become?

4. Rationale: Recent outbreak Not especially infectious Epidemic levels in West Africa Reasoning behind this relationship Enrich the Premed A Community with knowledge of the virus Origins and history of Ebola and its affect on humans.

5. Findings: Ebola Hemorrhagic disease Severe, often fatal in humans and non-human primates Severe outbreak in 2014 amongst several African countries  Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and more Death rates as high as 90%

6. Findings: Bats are the natural reservoir of Ebola  Humans and other animals infected while handling raw, infected bat meat  Contact with infected partially-eaten fruit or bat feces  Contact with the carcasses of other infected animals  Bats can spread virus because they are capable of flight

8. Findings: The first outbreak of Ebola  Unknown whether the virus previously lacked the ability to infect humans  First official outbreak in 1976  Economically depressed areas have less access to proper medical facilities  Hardest hit areas are ones where people are affected by poverty and whose cultural practices put people in contact with the remains of others who may have died from the disease  Lack of sanitation practices so healthcare workers become infected  Billboards and signage made to spread awareness of disease but illiteracy prevents the message from getting out

10. Conclusion: The infection by Ebola is not transmitted until its last stage No licensed vaccines or antiviral treatment available  Significant progress only made in vaccines for nonhuman primates Elucidation of the viral replication cycle and complete understanding of viral proteins is necessary to create human treatments Despite the low incidence of infection, the lethality and potential for short-range aerosol transmission of Ebola virus in patients with advanced illness make the virus a severe biological threat

11. Follow-up Questions: If there are known human survivors of the Ebola virus and it has been proven that their survival is due to their genetics, why are there not more efforts put into research for a cure using personalized medicine? Why is there not more aid for areas that are not developed enough to properly prevent outbreaks of such a virus?

12. Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola /11136024/Ebola-outbreak-the-global-spread-of- the-virus-in-90-seconds.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola /11136024/Ebola-outbreak-the-global-spread-of- the-virus-in-90-seconds.html