Research And Choose An Existing Disease Causing Agent (Research Paper Sample)

Health Care Issues
Name
Institution
Ebola Viral Disease
The disease causing agent is called Ebola virus. This virus has five well known strains. These strains include: Zaire, Sudan, Bundibugyo, Tai’ forest and Ruston. Out of these, Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo are the most commonly known causes of the disease condition with fatalities following infections in humans (Baize et al., 2014). This disease condition is zoonotic in nature; being transmissible from the animals to humans through contact with the body fluids.
Epidemiology:
Outbreak around that agent
Take an example of an outbreak that would occur in the rural areas of West Africa, say Sierra Leone. An outbreak broke out in West Africa in 2013 and remained up to 2016 with its grievous effects felt by the world over. This disease began in Guinea and spread to most of the West African countries which included Liberia, Sierra Leone etc.
2014 March 10, there were reported cases of a disease with characteristics of vomiting, diarrhea, fever and high mortality rate in Southeast of Guinea. Strategies to investigate the cases were put in place through collaboration between the Ministry of Health of Guinea and Medecin Sans Frontieres’ researchers (Baize et al., 2014). This disease spread quickly due to unsafe cultural burial practices, high mobility in search of food and jobs as well as late detection.
Disease condition
EVD presents in form of the symptoms illustrated below. A laboratory investigation shows the manifestation of clinical signs of reduced liver- elevated levels of ALT and AST and kidney functions- renal failure, thrombocytopenia, leukopenia and clotting abnormality- increased prothrombin and Partial thromboplatin times.
Modes of transmission
This disease is transmitted by contact with the blood and the body fluids of an infected wild animal. The wildlife deemed to be culpable is the fruit bats and nonhuman primates (chimpanzees and the gorillas). The index case recorded in a village in Guinea occurred when a child lying under a fruit tree got into contact with fluids of an infected animal, probably a fruit bat said to be the natural host of Ebola virus (Qiu et al., 2014). Four days later the child died. After some days, the health care giver of the child also became sick and died. The health care giver had handled the child without significant protective equipment ending up contacting the bodily fluids and thus contracted the infection.This was followed by the sister, mother and the grandmother of the child.
The spread from human-human can occur by one of the two modes:
Direct contact with the fluids of the body (semen, milk, stool, urine, sweat, vomit and blood) of an infected person.
Contact with the materials/ objects (bedding, clothing) contaminated with body fluids.
Incubation period
The incubation period of this disease is known to be between 2- 21 days from infection to the onset of the symptoms, with an average of about 11.4 days (Baize et al., 2014).
Symptoms
Majority of the cases of Ebola Virus Disease commence with a sudden eruption of fever and general body weaknesses (malaise).
Symptoms ranging from mild to severe hemorrhagic fever. This may occur in 30-50% of the patients 4-5 days after the onset of the symptoms.
The frequent early symptoms are headache, hiccups, fatigue, muscle pains, vomiting, and diarrhea, measles-like rash, conjunctiva infection, bleeding and neurological complications- seizures, meningoencephalitis and stiffness of the neck (Baize et al., 2014).
Gastrointestinal symptoms; these include abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhea that lead to fluid losses that are followed by the hypovolemic shock. This can subsequently result to death in some cases.
The hemorrhagic symptoms in form of high bleeding were originally thought to be the hallmark of the Ebola Virus Disease. It is seen to occur both internally and externally with blood oozing from gums and blood in stools. However true this might be, it may not always be the case since some patients who are diagnosed with EVD sometimes lack these symptoms (Baize et al., 2014).
Kidney and liver impairment presented in form of reduced function tests.
Treatment
Treatment of Ebola Viral Disease is mainly supportive and symptom based since there is no approved standard drug for the treatment of the same. Infusion of fluids (rehydration therapy) orally or intravenously is practiced to replenish the lost water and electrolytes. Antibiotics are used to treat infections that may accompany the condition and make it more severe. Blood and platelet transfusion is also done to replace the lost blood. Some medicines are incorporated to relieve fever. Any treatment is directed to target the symptoms. All these attempts are aimed at increasing chances of survival and not the elimination of the infective agent. In addition, oxygen and blood pressure is maintained within the right limits (Branch, 2016).
A drug called Ribavirin has been used albeit with limited breakthrough. There is no vaccine that is currently available even though two vaccines are being tested for human safety. Blood products are too being tested for suitability to be used as immune therapies (Baize et al., 2014).
Overall morbidity and mortality
If control measures are not put in place, the rate of the spread of the disease in a population is always very high; which is especially propagated by cultural and religious practices in regard to the handling of the dead. In West Africa, this disease spread very fast to the extent of crossing the borders between countries after the first case was recorded. It spread from Guinea to other countries- Liberia, Sierra Leone etc.
According to Branch (2016), morbidity rate was high like in the case where 28 persons contracted the disease from contact with an ill person and subsequently with the corpse of the same in Mayombe district of Sierra Leone. The incidences were very high in Conakry and Gueckedou cities. Initially the mortality rate was 86% where 12 out of the 14 EVD cases died. Further on, 79 of the 111 cases died. February 17th 2016 14,122 cases of EVD were recorded in Sierra Leone out of which 3,955 reportedly died (Team, 2014). In Liberia, transmission rates increased rapidly from 1088 to 3452 within a span of two months (Aug- Sep 2014). In October, new recorded cases were 3077. Fatality rates were between 30-90% in Guinea in 2016 (Team, 2014).
Control measures and the implementation
There was need to execute...