Ebola virus
The Ebola virus, also know as Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a disease caused by viruses from four different families of viruses: 1)filoviruses, 2)arenavirus, 3)flavavirus, 4)bunyaviruses. The usual host for most of these viruses are rodents or anthropoids (such as ticks and mosquitoes). In some cases, such as the Ebola virus, the natural host for the virus is unknown. All forms of viral hemorrhagic fever begin with a fever and muscle aches. Depending on the particular virus, the disease can progress until the patient becomes very ill with repiratory problems, severe bleeding internally and externally, kidney problems and shock. The severity of viral hemorrhagic fever can range from relatively mild illness to death. The Ebola virus is one of the deadliest diseases known to man. When magnified several thousand times by an electron microscope, these viruses have the appearance of long filaments or threads. Ebola virus was discovered in 1976 and was named for a river in Zaire, Africa where it was first detected. The first case appeared from nowhere, it killed 340 people. The disease is spread to health care workers in contact with body fluids, and also from patient to the person who cares for him or her in the home .The disease is also spread among those who prepare the corpses for burial. The disease is not as yet to be thought airborne .The only way to contract this disease is from a vector or contact with infected body fluids. Illness occurs 2 - 21 days after infection but generally within 7 - 14 days, beginning with much the same symptoms of that of the common cold or flu. . The virus causes an unusual combination of clots and hemorrhages. The clots lodge throughout the body, King 2 filling capillaries and shutting off blood to parts of the internal organs, especially to the brain, liver, and spleen. This causes the affected organs to begin to decay. Blood begins to leak through the capillaries and into the tissues,