Ebola in Africa
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In Africa Ebola killed numerous people leaving behind people that didnt
even know why or what was happening. It was a lot like what started happening in the U.S. in the mid 1970s. When aids first showed up in Denmark people were dieing but no one new why. In the first few cases there were no major illnesses. The disease that showed up was one that attacks the bodies immune system. The US was completely not ready for this to happen. .
At the beginning doctors and scientist didnt know how the disease was passes or were it came from. The Center for Disease Control is located in Atlanta George was doing an investigation to find out were the disease came from. The CDC started their investigation by sending investigators to the local Bathhouses in San Francisco. The investigators didnt know how the disease was being passes on but they thought it might be by sexual intercourse. The main question that the investigators had to answer was what do you think? What do you know? And what can they prove?
By Halloween 1981 there were 160 cases and 88 deaths from the unknown disease. The Center for Disease Control was getting samples of blood, urine, and swabs from the mouth form people they thought carried the disease to study. As the disease came out to the public people didnt know what to call it. So the public called it Gay Pneumonia. They called it this, I guess, because it was only know of in the gay communities. The Center for Disease called the disease G.R.I.D. Which stood for Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Which was kind of mean because they had no proof that you had to be gay to get the disease. The first people to get the disease without being gay were the Haitians. It wasnt until 119 people had died that the disease was finally proven to be sexually transmitted?
A member of the Center for Disease control named Dr. Francis figured out that the disease was gobbling up the bodies T-cells by watching the game Pac Man. The Center for Disease centered their investigation around one person called Patient O. How was a airline steward which had the disease. There were 40 cases directly linked to patient O. Which in turn lead to numerous cases. Proving that you can give the disease to some one even if you dont know you have it.
As of June 1982 the number of cases and deaths had more then doubled. The number of cases went to 405 with 272 deaths.