Essay About Deadly Virus And Element Selenium

Are We Doing Enough to Stop the Spread of Ebola?
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Are We Doing Enough to Stop the Spread of Ebola?
Aryn Baker in an article in Time entitled “Racing Ebola: What the World Needs to do to
Stop the Deadly Virus” says that help isnt coming fast enough for patients suffering in the three
major countries in Africa most severely affected by the recent outbreak; Sierra Leone,Guinea,
and Liberia. Baker, in her article also states that the WHO and the Red Cross have tried to come
in contact with government officials from around the world with little or no effort from the
countries to assist in fighting the spread of Ebola as of the beginning of October 2014. In the
two arguments I have researched the authors provide detailed facts and opinion concerning
whether the Ebola virus was man made or not, and if were doing enough to stop the spread of
Ebola.
On one hand Jack Challem who wrote the article entitled “Could Widespread Selenium
Deficiency Have Been A Factor In The Ebola Outbreak?.”, states that the entire outbreak could
be controlled just by allowing the virus to have unlimited access to the element Selenium, and
with the right amount of aid we could decrease the number of lives the virus will take and
eventually man would be able to control the containment of the virus. E. Will Taylor, Ph.D., and
Chandra Sekar Ramanathan, M.Sc., both are from the Department of Medicinal Chemistry,
University of Georgia. Their research supports the fact that the deadly Ebola virus contains
selenium-dependent genes, their research helps explain why the deadly virus has been able to
mutate and spread so aggressively when it cannot obtain enough of the selenium mineral.
“According to Taylor, the Zaire strain of Ebola virus appears to have several genes that produce
proteins with an exceptionally high content of selenocysteine, a rare selenium-based amino
acid.” Taylor also said that when selenium deficiencies are low the virus reproduces and mutates
in order to search for a new source of selenium, the virus can find its source of selenium
throughout the soil, and often replenishes and comes back with a vengeance. It is with this
research that scientists are helping to try and contain the virus in Africa and confine those who
are infected.
One another hand Leonard G. Horowitz, wrote the article “Ebola: Evidence Shows
Theyre Man-Made.” states that the Ebola virus was made as a form of population control to
slowly decrease the population count in Africa and then recently the virus got out of control and