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On September 8, 1976, in the Yumbuku village hospital, near the tiny Ebola river in what
is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, a schoolteacher died, becoming the first known
victim of a still-mysterious disease.
The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is by far the worst in the short history of
this strange virus, and it’s ignited a wave of alarm and generalized freak-out around
the world.
Today we’re gonna give you a detailed, accurate explanation of this disease to try and give
this whole situation a nice calm, comforting, scientific hug.
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There’s a lot we still don’t know about Ebola.
We don’t know how long it’s been around.
We aren’t sure where it hides.
We don’t know exactly how it kills, or who may be immune.
But…
there’s also a lot we do know.
Ebola is a big deal and it should be taken very seriously, but the most frightening adversary
is the one we don’t understand.
As science writer David Quammen wrote, “Ebola is no death angel… it’s just a virus.”
Ebolavirus describes a genus of viruses in the family Filoviridae.
While most viruses house themselves in geometric armor that would make Buckminster Fuller proud,
this family of viruses package their genome inside long, worm-like filaments.
“THE Ebola virus”, the one responsible for the 2014 outbreak, is one of the five
known viruses in that genus, a strain called the “Zaire ebolavirus.”
When we say someone “has Ebola”, they have "Ebola virus disease", a severe infection
with a laundry list of side effects including abdominal pain, headache, fever, nausea, vomiting,
sore throat, loss of appetite, joint pain, diarrhea, bleeding from the gums, rash, and
hiccups.
Books like 1994’s "The Hot Zone" are filled with accounts of liquified organs and bleeding
eyes, but that doesn’t really happen.
Ultimately, Ebola kills through massive organ failure, a nice way of saying the body’s
machinery breaks down from damage.
Diseases like Ebola seem to pop up out of nowhere, madder than a cat in the bathtub.
But they have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually animals.
We call this process of animal-to-human crossover infection zoonosis.
Zoonosis is a complex and fascinating subject that really deserves its own video… note
to self, make video about zoonosis…
They include swine flu, SARS, West Nile, and the bubonic plague…
…and rabies, HIV, Lyme disease, Marburg, Hantavirus, dengue, bird flu… you know,
all the really fun ones.
Zoonotic diseases hide out in “reservoir hosts”, animals that carry the infection
with little or no illness, until humans, spreading ever-deeper into the wild, come into contact
by handling or eating them, giving the virus an opportunity to jump into our species.
Current evidence points to fruit bats as at least one of Ebola’s natural reservoirs.
Disturbingly, Ebola seems to regularly spill over to chimpanzee and gorilla populations,
with even deadlier consequences.
This ability to lie silently in wait like a deadly, viral ninja is what makes diseases
like Ebola so worrisome.
So how scared should we be?
To be completely honest… unless you live in a very specific part of West Africa, are
traveling to a very specific part of West Africa, or you are a medical professional
treating people currently infected with the Ebola virus, you’re probably not going to
get Ebola.
There are a few reasons that Ebola is unlikely to set off a global game of deadly pandemic
dominoes.
"Guess what everybody, that's an outbreak!"
As diseases go, Ebola is no record setter in the infection department.
The basic reproduction number, or R0, for a disease describes how many new people typically
get sick from one sick person.
Take a disease like measles, this number is high.
But Ebola’s R0 is much lower, even lower than influenza.
One reason for that is because of how Ebola is transmitted.
People infected with the flu virus can walk down the street free of symptoms, spewing
out virus like an infection fountain.
But Ebola isn’t contagious before symptoms show up, which means with careful medical
observation, it can be quarantined.
Also, You can not catch Ebola just by sitting in the same room, or a train, or an airplane
with someone who is infected, unless you make out with them or they vomit on your face or
something.
Infection requires direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is showing symptoms
or has recently died.
Airborne viruses like influenza must survive for long periods of time in air without drying,
and they’re usually concentrated in the lungs.
Ebola doesn’t do either of those things.
It just didn’t evolve to infect through the air, and there is NO indication that the
virus could go airborne.
None.
Now, this is science, and I can’t say it definitely can’t happen, but it’s like
really, really close to that.
While Ebola spreads more slowly than other diseases, it’s extremely lethal.
Check out this simulation from The Washington Post to see how that makes a difference (link
in the description)
On our Facebook page, I asked if people were scared of Ebola.
Hundreds of you responded, and despite coverage like this…
"Another case of Ebola in America!
A new case of Ebola!
A Texas healthcare worker does have Ebola!"
The response was overwhelmingly “no”, because most of us live in countries with
good public health systems are very well-equipped to handle this sort of thing.
But what if you live in West Africa?
People are dying there, and just because I’m not concerned about getting Ebola doesn’t
mean I shouldn’t care about them.
Without serious intervention the situation in Africa will probably get worse before it
gets better.
This outbreak could persist for years.
The biggest reason?
The countries with the highest numbers of infectious disease deaths, are the countries
with the least amount of public health spending.
In many ways, Ebola itself is a symptom of a bigger health crisis.
It makes screening, monitoring, treating, and quarantining infected individuals, and
safely disposing of the dead extremely difficult.
And as Dr. Margaret Chan, director of the World Health Organization, wrote last week,
“rumors and panic are spreading faster than the virus,” which is definitely not helping.
There are some hopeful treatments being developed, like experimental vaccines, or Ebola-killing
antibodies from mice that are disguised to look human and manufactured in tobacco plants!
That’s certainly the best thing to ever come out of tobacco.
Researching new medicines costs money that drug companies aren’t always willing to
spend, but luckily people with deep pockets are helping fund some of the response.
Viruses like this scare us because we can’t see them, we can only see the damage they
do.
But fear and panic and paranoia and misinformation don’t help us overcome challenges, they
create new ones.
So let’s take a deep breath, trust in science, and get to work.
Check out David Quammen's book "Ebola" for some stories of what we do and don't know
about this virus from scientists who are working on the front lines.
I’ll continue to post updates on Tumblr and Twitter as new information comes out.
Until then, stay curious, and to quote Douglas Adams: Don't panic.