UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour - Ebola Update

UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour

Ebola Update

News from the BBC that deaths from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa have passed 3,000, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

The latest figures indicate that more than 6,500 people are believed to have been infected in the region.

Liberia is reported as the worst affected country, having recorded around 1,830 deaths linked to the latest outbreak. The outbreak is the most deadly ever seen and one that US President Barack Obama has said is a "threat to global security".

Some studies have warned that the numbers of infected could rise to more than 20,000 as soon as early November.

The WHO said that two new areas, in Guinea and Liberia, have recorded their first confirmed cases of Ebola in the last seven days that highlights the risk of infection for health workers trying to stem the outbreak.

Of the 375 workers known to have become infected, 211 have died from the virus.

These deaths and sickness have made it even more difficult for the already strained healthcare systems in the affected countries to deal with the outbreak especially in Liberia where there is a massive shortage of hospital beds.

The US is sending some 3,000 troops to help Liberia tackle the disease, and set up emergency medical facilities.

• Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage
• Spread by body fluids, such as blood and saliva
• Fatality rate can reach 90% - but current outbreak has mortality rates at about 70%
• Incubation period is two to 21 days
• There is no proven vaccine or cure
• Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery
• Fruit bats, a delicacy for some West Africans, are considered to be virus's natural host

The three-day curfew that was imposed recently in  Sierra Leone in an attempt to quell the outbreak in the country saw more than a million households surveyed and 130 new cases discovered, the authorities say. The quarantine area has been extended to three new districts, meaning more than a third of the country's six million people cannot move freely.

Amanda Thomas

UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour

Kindly sponsored by 1-stop-health-shop.com