Word: viruses
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...virus can be passed from one person to another a number of ways--primarily through direct contact. Scientists have recently isolated Ebola viruses from the sweat, blood, saliva and lung tissue of those sorry individuals autopsied during the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Zaire. That epidemic was brought under control through a strategy that sought to limit the skin-to-skin contacts between infected individuals and their healthy, living caretakers...
...public health are ignored serve as vectors for epidemics. There never would have been an Ebola epidemic in Kikwit had there not been a looted, decrepit hospital into which the first handful of cases were admitted. Once inside a facility that lacked any modicum of hygienic practices the virus spread rapidly, first claiming large numbers of health care workers, and then their patients...
...Health Organization team that responded to the epidemic--five months after it began, illustrating a failure in global disease surveillance--simply implemented classic early-20th-century public health measures. No high-tech solutions were needed: hand washing, quarantine, cessation of funeral practices, contact tracing and public education about the virus were sufficient to conquer Ebola...
...current outbreak in northern Uganda once again finds the virus taking advantage of poor medical facilities and funeral practices. And, once again, classic public health efforts are in place to bring the epidemic under control. Like its predecessor in Zaire, this outbreak has come to world attention months after it began, and only when health care workers, including foreigners, have succumbed. The full scope of the epidemic, including evidence it may also be expanding in Sudan and southward towards Uganda's capital city, Kampala, has yet to be determined. Regardless of how large its scope may be, however, the same...
...reappearance of the Ebola virus does not signal such a need. Rather, it is warning us that we ignore the essential public health needs of the world's poorest nations at our own peril. Unless the wealthy world is prepared to assist in the development of strong infrastructures in the poor world, microbial diseases will remain a threat to us all. Investment need not be prohibitively massive. The good news is that most public health interventions are pretty cheap, and highly cost-effective...