The World Health Organisation declared the killer Ebola epidemic ravaging parts of West Africa an international health emergency and appealed for global aid to help afflicted countries.
Ebola has claimed at least 932 lives and infected more than 1,700 people since breaking out in Guinea earlier this year, according to the WHO.
Key facts
Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.
EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%.
EVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.
The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus.
Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals.
Incubation period-The incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms, is 2 to 21 days.
How it spreads-
The virus spreads through blood, sweat, semen, vomit, urine and saliva.
Symptoms-
he symptoms of the disease include fever, headache, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhoea, stomach ache, joint pain and bleeding.
Vaccine and treatment-
No licensed vaccine for EVD is available. Several vaccines are being tested, but none are available for clinical use.
Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. Patients are frequently dehydrated and require oral rehydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids.
No specific treatment is available. New drug therapies are being evaluated.
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