If you have ever played the online game called "Pandemic" which also happens to be a board game than you will understand what is going on with the Ebola outbreak and what happens. In the game Pandemic which has two sequels Pandemic 2 and Pandemic 3 you are given a country at random which is to be ground zero for your virus. The goal of the game is to infect the entire planet with a virus which you can create and enhance as you advance and infect more countries. Once the entire world is infected and there are no survivors or a cure you win the game.
This time however the outbreak isn't a made up virus and it's not a game. In January of 2014 unknown to the worlds population the Ebola virus which was first discovered in 1976 infects it's first victim supposedly in Guinea Africa which is where the outbreak began. February 2014 the first case surfaces in Guinea Africa but it's not until March that the government officially reports it after officially deeming it an outbreak. The virus then quickly spreads to Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Over the months that followed the virus racked up an estimated infection count of over 2,100 people. Of that number as of this week the estimated death toll is at just over 1,140 victims and that's just the reported cases.
All flights to and from Africa to the US and a host of other countries have been stopped effectively shutting down all physical contact with the virus outbreak. To this date there have only been two reported cases in America related to the outbreak. The infected contracted the virus while in Africa helping patients in Liberia and are now in isolation in an Atlanta, GA hospital where they seem to be recovering.
Ebola is a virus that rarely comes around but when it does it usually has a high death toll and infection rate especially when the outbreak begins in a third world country like Africa. Ebola often takes close to a month to develop and start to show symptoms. Early symptoms can range from sudden fever, headaches all the way to a sore throat and muscle pain. Later stage symptoms include vomiting and impaired kidney and liver functionality.
As of this past week the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially deemed this a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This designation has only been used twice in recorded history. Once for the 2007 outbreak of H1N1 or Swine Flu and a second time for outbreak of Polio earlier this year. The WHO has also publicly stated that it believes the number of infected people could reach over 20,000 before containment efforts finally catch up and stop the outbreak.
As for me I'm perfectly happy here safe in NH although I fear the WHO's numbers are possibly underestimated and that this might not be as safe a place as I'd like to think. That being because This is the East Coast which is the closest part of America to Africa but I won't jump to conclusions just yet. There's still a lot of time between now and the WHO's projected numbers being reached and I have the utmost confidence that with the UN's new Ebola relief effort everything will be just dandy (can you feel the sarcasm?).
You see I just can't see an outbreak this large that materialized from a virus with no known cure that also originated in a third world country where might I add sanitation is lacking. At least if your going by sanitation guidelines set in place by first world countries like the US and Canada. Now I'm not saying Africa isn't a clean place but a very good portion of the continent is not. This makes for a larger breeding ground for the virus as well as easier spreadability.
Previous outbreaks show us that nothing of this scale and magnitude have hit in a long time. The last outbreak was in 2013 with the number of infected reaching only six and of that six only three of them 50% died. The CDC actually has a great timeline detailing the worlds Ebola outbreaks from the date of discovery to present date which can be found
here. The timeline details the origin of the outbreak as well as the number of infected and the percent of the infected that died as a result of the virus.
I would love to hear your opinion on and sadly your predictions for the future spread of the virus as well as the UN, CDC and WHO's efforts at containment and a possible cure which as I mentioned does not exist to date.
You can tweet me @prepidemic using the #TPcoffeetalk.
xoxo Rebecca
