HOW WAS EBOLA VIRUS DISCOVERED BY DOCTOR PETER PIOT

                                         
     Ebola virus was discovered by Belgian scientist named doctor Peter Piot from a blood sample of a dying Catholic nun way back in September 1976.

     Working in the lab that day was Peter Piot, a 27-year-old scientist and medical school graduate training as a clinical microbiologist.On that date a package of a shiny, blue thermos flask containing vial of bloods along with a note arrived at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. It was from a Belgian doctor based in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    His message explained that the blood was that of a nun, also from Belgium, who was sicked  with a mysterious illness which he couldn't identify.

     When the samples were treated, placed some of the cells under an electron microscope they saw something they didn't expect."We saw a gigantic worm like
structure, gigantic by viral standards," says Piot. "It's a very unusual shape for a virus, only one other virus looked like that and that was the Marburg virus.

    A virus that was first recognised in 1967 when 31 people became ill with haemorrhagic fever in the cities of Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany and in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia. This Marburg outbreak was associated with laboratory staff who were working with infected monkeys imported from Uganda, seven people died." But after consulting experts around the world he got confirmation that what he was seeing under the microscope wasn't Marburg, this was something else, something never seen before.

       Later news informed them the sicked nun,  had died. The team also learned, people were sicked with this mysterious illness in a remote area in the north of the country. Symptoms included fever, diarrhoea and vomiting followed by bleeding and eventually death.

       Two weeks later Piot,a young Belgian scientist  who had never been to Africa before, was on a flight travelling to a remote part of the Congolese rainforest. His task was to help find out why so many people were dying from an unknown and terrifying disease, investigating this new virus and about stopping the epidemic.

       As they arrived the place a C-130 transport aircraft loaded with Landrover, fuel and all the equipment they needed, ready to  transport the team to the centre of the outbreak, a village in the equatorial rainforest, about 1,000km (620 miles) further north.

      The team's final destination was the village of Yambuku,  about 120km (75 miles) from Bumba, where the C-130 plane had left them. Yambuku was home to an old Catholic mission, it had a hospital and a school run by a priest and nuns, all of them from Belgium."The area was beautiful. The mission was surrounded by lush rainforest and the earth was red, the nature was incredibly rich but the people were so poor," says Piot. "Joseph Conrad called that place 'The Heart of Darkness', but I thought there was a lot of light there."

Dr.Piot (center)

       The beauty of Yambuku belied the horror that was unfolding for the people that lived there.When Piot arrived, the first people he met were a group of nuns and a priest who had retreated to a guesthouse and established their own cordon sanitaire, a barrier used to prevent the spread of disease.

  

      The priority was to stop the epidemic, but first the team needed to find out how this virus was moving from person to person - by air, in food, by direct contact or spread by insects. "We had to start asking questions.

               

EV viewed under an electron microscope

These were the three questions they asked:

• How did the epidemic evolve? Knowing when each person caught the virus gave clues to what kind of infection this was - from here the story of the virus began to emerge.

• Where did the infected people come from? The team visited all the surrounding villages and mapped out the number of infections - it was clear that the outbreak was closely related to areas served by the local hospital.

• Who gets infected? The team found that more women than men caught the disease and particularly women between 18 and 30 years old - it turned out that many of the women in this age group were pregnant and many had attended an antenatal clinic at the hospital.

 pre-natal consultations

 The mystery of the virus was beginning to unravel.

        They noticed most of the infections were among women aged between 20 and 30 and clustered around a clinic where they went for pre-natal consultations. It turned out that the virus was being transmitted through a handful of needles which were being reused to give injections to pregnant women.
        The team also noticed that people were getting ill after attending funerals. When someone dies, the body is full of the virus because of vomitus, diarrhoea, blood, any direct contact, such as washing or preparation of the deceased without protection can be a serious risk.

  The next step was to stop the transmission of the virus

      The closure of the hospital, the use of quarantine and making sure the community had all the necessary information eventually brought an end to the epidemic, but nearly 300 people died.

Medical experts from several organizations are working at the  isolation ward. ...

       Piot and his colleagues had learned a lot about the virus during three months in Yambuku, but it still lacked a name."We didn't want to name it after the village, Yambuku, because it's so stigmatising. You don't want to be associated with that," says Piot.The team decided to name the virus after a river. They had a map of Zaire, although not a very detailed one, and the closest river they could see was the Ebola River. From that point on, the virus that arrived in a flask in Antwerp  would be known as the Ebola virus.

      Last February 2014, Piot returned to Yambuku for only the second time since 1976, to mark his 65th birthday. He met Sukato Mandzomba, a nurse who caught the virus in 1976 and survived. "It was fantastic to meet him again, it was a very moving moment," says Piot. Piot who is now the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says the present outbreak is the largest and the longest ever and could soon see it spread across the world.  

      It's been 38 years since that initial outbreak and the world is now experiencing its worst Ebola epidemic ever. Ebola outbreak in West Africa  was first reported in February and according  to the latest count from the World Health Organization,  1069 people have died in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria .Guinea was the first country to be hit by the epidemic earlier this year and has killed 377 people in the country. It has been spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, which have all declared a national health emergency.

   

Ebola virus disease at its extreme

     Ebola is a rare but deadly virus that causes bleeding inside and outside the body.As the virus spreads through the body, it damages the immune system and organs. Ultimately, it causes levels of blood-clotting cells to drop. This leads to severe, uncontrollable bleeding. The disease's, known as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (EHF) or Ebola Virus Disease(EVD), outbreak comes from the deadliest and most aggressive strain of the virus.Though it kills up to 90% of people who are infected. The current outbreak is killing between 50% and 60% of people infected.

    Cases by Country:
Guinea
Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 510
Suspected Case Deaths: 377
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 369

Liberia
Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 670
Suspected Case Deaths: 355
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 166

Nigeria
Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 12
Suspected and Confirmed Case Deaths: 3
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 10

Sierra Leone
Suspected and Confirmed Case Count: 783
Suspected and Confirmed Case Deaths: 334
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 706

Medical staff working on protective gear before entering an isolation area at the Ebola treatment center 

      Questions were arises and should be directed to WHO.

Why has Ebola Virus never killed millions of people about 38 years ago since it was discovered in Congo Zaire?

.In 1999 a bitter kola was very effective in treatment of EBV and other related flu,but no noise was made about it simply because is it an african local or traditional fruit?

.Why is Ebola deadly now?

.Is Ebola Virus, A BIOLOGICAL WAR AGAINST WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES to save their countries from financial meltdown at the expense of innocent west african populace?

There are many more questions demanding for answers.

 NEWS UPDATE (11-12-2014)

A Device Developed to Neutralize Killer Viruses Including Ebola Virus.

       A locally developed machine that taps electrical current to promote general health and well-being and fight all kinds of diseases may just be able to neutralize killer viruses, including the current global scourge, the Ebola virus.
      Danny Orijuela, inventor of the electrotherapy device, told The STAR yesterday he was offering his invention as a possible remedy to alleviate, if not treat, the dreaded virus.
Orijuela is a member of the Filipino Inventors Society Producers Cooperative (FISPC). He has applied for a patent and certification with the Food and Drug Administration for his machine.
       He credits his device for saving the life of his daughter years ago.
“I have treated a dengue fever case that was then in the critical level or the bleeding stage. And this was a case that involved no less than my own daughter, Jennylyn Domondon Orijuela, who now lives in Florida,” Orijuela said.
       He also credited his device for treating a leptospirosis case that was also in critical stage.
“If you will consider that it was able to treat the two diseases, we may be able to kill the Ebola virus, as long as it is still in the early stages or the symptomatic stage when there’s just fever and body pains,” he said.
“If it’s worse than this, it’s possible that the electrotheraphy device could not do anything anymore,” he added.
       He said that all viruses are weak when in the initial stage and negative ions can easily kill the virus.
“Nothing can beat electricity in killing a virus and I have tested this for more than 30 years,” he said.
Orijuela’s electrotherapy device is being positioned as a “miracle” new technology that promises to correct what is wrong with the human body.The device is described as a multi-functional machine that can stimulate and rebuild the natural electric field in a human body.
    Orijuela said people suffering from high blood pressure, including stroke victims and those who are undergoing dialysis, have asked him for help and have been happy with the results.
The NIW 2014 celebrations organized by the FISPC will have two locations – Fishermall along Quezon Avenue and the Filipino Inventors’ Society Cooperative display room at the ground floor of the Delta building at the corner of Quezon Avenue and West Avenue in Quezon City.
      The device will be made available for trial at the Fishermall during NIW Week.

Ebola Threat Discussed

     The Top Leaders Forum is an annual gathering of top-level executives and leaders in the country’s private sector to discuss topics, challenges and action plans to create a holistic disaster risk reduction campaign against the threat of Ebola in Asia. The Philippines should be well prepared should there be cases of Ebola virus in the country. More than 130 government officials and top businessmen from all industries attended the forum.
     Margareta Wahlstrom, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction and who presided over the forum, said the threat of Ebola affects all countries in the world because it’s a public health hazard that is hard to contain.“It is a biological hazard. It is a public health threat which cannot be contained within the national borders because it travels with people,” she said, adding that people in Asia should not feel complacent about the virus because it can also happen here.
      She said educating the people about the disease is the first step towards preparedness.