Considering the events of this week in Egypt and Libya, I wanted to steer clear of these highly publicized events and focus on some other tragedy that failed to get national coverage. Then I stumbled upon this article. The Democratic Republic of Congo declared a reccently discovered strain of the Ebola virus to be an epidemic on August 19th. That was almost a month ago....... AND its still causing problems in this country.
What's especially scary is that there is no known cure or vaccine for this virus. So far, its account for the death of 31 people in the towns of Isora and Viadana. The disease is spread by human contact and will cause a person to iternally bleed to death. Although these towns have been quarintened, there is no guarentee that it will stop the virus from spreading elsewhere. A few months earlier, it accounted for the deaths of 16 in Uganda. Where will it go next? Will it be stopped? Who knows. All we can know for sure is that the unique climate of Africa can create the perfect breeding ground for deadly diseases which I find scary to think about. What will cause the next major world wide epidemic?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19591204
Very scary. I followed the link in this article to "what is Ebola," and found this timely quote:
ReplyDelete"Some scientists say that the growing numbers of so-called emerging diseases are due to increasing forays by humans into the tropical forests. This brings them into contact with new creatures - and new infections - making it possible there could be even more powerful viruses waiting to play havoc in the human body."
This is so sad to hear about, especially when drug companies are finally finding help for those with AIDS in Africa. Those poor people live in a country full of the world's worst diseases, and unfortunately, Ebola is very dangerous and a disease that is becoming more well known around the world for all the wrong reasons. It's so scary, I hope at least a vaccine can be found soon, if not a cure.
ReplyDeleteThis is so terrifying, that it is on such a big scale I could not even contemplate how something like this would be stopped. It is a little disturbing that this is not as well known as AIDS is in this country because it seems to be making just as much as an impact, but I like how you picked something that is not highly publicized.
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