Should We Be Afraid Of Ebola ?

EBOLA : Should we be afraid of the virus

Introduction :

For months we've been hearing about the deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa that has killed more than 3,000 persons in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Liberia.

Despite reassurances from health officials in developed countries that Ebola is unlikely to spread, concerns about the disease have grown. But should we really be scared of Ebola virus?

To put the Ebola threat in perspective, here are some reasons to be concerned about the outbreak, and reasons not to fear it:

I. Why people are afraid :

.Ebola has been described as a "painful, dreadful, merciless virus."

.Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is an acute, serious severe and often fatal illness.

.It has a high fatality rate and requires isolation or quarantine and has no known cure.

.Ebola spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact with the body fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluid…

Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD.

Symptoms :

In addition to Fever; Severe headache; Muscle pain; Weakness; Diarrhea; Vomiting; Abdominal (stomach) pain, symptoms include unexplained heomorrage, so when we hear about all the horrible symtomps, particularly in the last few months, where Ebola” has been in every headline and on every commentators’ lips, it explains the fear that has been developed towards the virus.

But if we pause to find out some facts, such as how ebola is spread, we realize that it’s not as scary as it seems.

One of the main reasons why we shouldn’t be scared of it is that it is not as easily transmitted as other diseases. It does not travel through the air like influenza—to be infected you must come into contact with fluids from an infected person.

Even more importantly, until a person is showing signs of being sick—with symptoms like fever and nausea—they are NOT contagious.

The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have very weak health systems, lacking human and infrastructural resources, having only recently emerged from long periods of conflict and instability.

Ebola's toll is minuscule compared with other diseases that kills millions of people like malaria,diarrhea and pneumonia

But if the disease does show up in a developed countries, doctors and hospitals whould know how to contain it quickly and before a person is contagious.

However, our brains don't think in proportions when it comes to different types of threats and circumstances. To this we react with extreme caution or even panic in certain situations… because we have understood that the most deadly killers on earth are too small to see with the naked eye.

However, A level of worry that doesn't match the evidence can be bad for you, because worrying too much causes stress

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