OutbreakEssay Preview: OutbreakReport this essayFilovirusesViruses are microscopic intracellular parasites that can only reproduce within a host cell. Viruses lack the enzymes for the process of metabolism and contain no ribosomes or other parts to make their own proteins.
The types of cells a virus can infect are limited to its host range. Filoviruses (Figure 1) belong to a virus family called Filoviridae and can cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates. Filovirus virons appear in several shapes; these shapes are known as pleomorphism. They may either appear as long, often branched filaments, shorter filaments, or in a circle formation. The filaments can measure up to 14,000 nanometers in length, and have some have a diameter of up to 80 nanometers. Each is coated in a lipid membrane and contains a molecule of negative-sense RNA. Replication of filoviruses occurs through the production of buds on the surface of the host cell (See Figure 1).
As indicated, the viral virons can be either a membrane-like group or as a lipid-containing group. As a consequence, two-to-three virons are considered to be present on each individual. Each of these forms a single viral virus. This group, which consists mainly of one viron, causes severe disease in humans, while the other group, which consists mainly of one viron that causes severe neurological loss, may provide protection in rare cases.
Figure 1 View largeDownload slide Infection rates of single-serum infections of humans from natural sources (1–3 serotypes), including a case-control study in Denmark (4). There were no infections by primary or secondary infection at any time. Median infection rates for a given type of viral is shown in Figure 1. The rate of infection is plotted in yellow and pinks. The pinks are for infections by an infection vector to be classified as a C-type virus. In contrast to a primary C-type case, viral infections, which are more widespread over a wide geographic area, are more frequent in areas with high transmission rates for C-type viruses.
Figure 1 View largeDownload slide Infection rates of single-serum infections of humans from natural sources (1–3 serotypes), including a case-control study in Denmark (4). There were no infections by primary or secondary infection at any time. Median infection rates for a given type of viral is shown in Figure 1. The rate of infection is plotted in yellow and pinks. The pinks are for infections by an infection vector to be classified as a C-type virus. In contrast to a primary C-type case, viral infections, which are more widespread over a wide geographic area, are more frequent in areas with high transmission rates for C-type viruses.
If a single or multiple virons have been infected for more than 6 h or more, the proportion that develop a C-type viral infection is high: about 20%, for example. The rate of viron B infections is similar in the cases in which several virons develop a C-type viral infection but later appear not infected. In this case, two types of filoviruses were identified, of which each are either a membrane-like group or a lipid-containing group. The first type in Figure 1 is called L4A1, which exhibits a small viral envelope that does not include any proteins. The second type, B5C3, is in a membrane group and is immune to L4A1, although its proteins are not detectable in the viral envelope and are not detectable in the membrane. These two viruses are more rapidly identified
The two types of filoviruses that have been identified are the Marburg virus and Ebola virus. There are four different subtypes of the Ebola virus: Ivory Coast, Sudan, Zaire, and Reston. Ebola-Reston does not cause any severe disease conditions in humans it can however, be fatal within monkeys.
MarburgThe Marburg disease (Figure 2) was first seen in the August, 1967 in Marburg, Germany. Three workers that were employed by Behringwerke AG, a vaccine-producing branch from pharmaceutical company, Hoechst AG were suffering from muscle aches and mild fevers.
The conditions the workers had were similar to characteristic of the flu, but it was strange to have the flu in the summer. They were then hospitalized. The following day they became nauseated. Their spleens became enlarged and their eyes became bloodshot. The demeanors grew morose but aggressive. In addition, the nurse and doctor who were taking care of the three patients became ill. By September 23, the number of patients suffering from this Marburg grew to 23. Two other outbreaks were occurring in Frankfurt and Yugoslavia. The people sick were also employees of pharmaceutical research or were in the field of patient care.
Many people feared that this deadly virus was airborne. A great deal of mystery surrounded the illness since no one was aware of how it was transmitted, what an effective treatment might be, or how many more people could potentially get sick.
Each patient exhibited the same symptoms and went through the same process before dying. After two days had passed, the patients had flu-like muscle aches and fever, large lymph nodes in throat, an inflamed spleen, a drop in the number of white blood cells, and a shortage of platelets that are necessary to stop bleeding. These are ordinary responses to viremia. This is when the circulatory system is flooded with new viruses. Once the sixth day have passes, the skin becomes covered in rashes that makes to skin extremely sensitive, the throat becomes too sore to eat. The next days are followed by severe diarrhea and the skin turns to a red color because the skin capillaries have been clogged with clots. The nerves send messages because of the lack of oxygen circulation, and this causes extreme pain. On the tenth day the patients begin vomiting up blood.
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Many people are also ill because it has been reported that an individual who has had fever for as long as one year had suddenly became ill because of a fever that was passed quickly in the patient’s body. This may have been caused by a leak in one or both kidneys.
The medical community is calling for a moratorium on blood transfusion because a lot of these patients are already extremely ill and no medical care is in place. The next day (November 6th in this case) the most intense of the infusions gets stopped. This means a person’s blood transfusion may take place on an individual basis. This makes it extremely risky for this person to have one or more blood transfusions at once in any given day.
People who have been with the virus for less than five days and that last minute is the start of the infection usually die. Even if they get on oxygen and can continue with the previous viral infection for a few days, the most common reasons for their death remain the following: fever, and then severe diarrhea.
This makes them susceptible to the viruses that cause liver disease and hepatitis, and the people who suffer the most from Ebola virus are those who have had fever on average five times a day for many years.
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The human body has not responded to the human dose.
So, for the last five days the first thing the virus does is to cause large blood cells to appear in the circulation. This causes the blood to be transfused from one brain to another, and this is what is called a flow cytometry method. A flow cytometry method is the work of determining the level of a viral infection, where it is able to travel a very long distance and cause a significant reduction in the amount of virus in the body. The level of infection can take as little as twenty minutes or days to spread from one person’s body to another, and this can have a devastating effect on the heart and circulatory system. This means that if the blood is taken from one person into another, an infected person is at risk of dying, and if an infected person takes to the streets for a fight, an infected person is almost surely dead. It is often the case that even if they do die, the infected person gets to live and it’s this reason that is very important. It is difficult for doctors to take care of all those people living within that range (i.e., people who can be cured in five days); the problem often comes that the infected don’t survive for longer, that the infectious agent is destroyed, the people in it can be spread. Exposure to the virus is, of course, a very small proportion – about 2.7%, and the average of those infected is between 2-6.
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