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What You Need to Know About Ebola

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    It's time we talked about Ebola.
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    It's been in the news a lot, and for good reason.
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    It's one of the deadliest diseases humanity faces,
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    the second deadliest technically,
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    and it's making a stand in West Africa.
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    Plus, for the first time, two US citizens with the disease
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    have been flown home for treatment.
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    But don't bar the doors and windows or get yourself rolled up
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    into some kind of 2006 Bird Flu hysteria
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    because we've met Ebola before,
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    and we're learning more about it than ever.
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    It used to be known as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever,
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    more recently Ebola Virus Disease.
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    But what the media have been lately referring to simply,
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    and sometimes hysterically, as Ebola,
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    is really one of at least five known species of the Ebola virus.
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    What they're referring to is the most dangerous species
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    known as Zaire Ebola virus, or Zebov,
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    named after the central African country
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    where it was first discovered in 1976, along the banks of the Ebola river.
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    It's in the news because it has infected more people this year
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    than it has any other year since that first outbreak.
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    So far in 2014 it's infected 1,323 people, 729 of whom have died.
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    And the virus has moved into some of West Africa's major population centers,
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    including countries like Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone
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    and possibly the Nigerian capital of Lagos.
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    So it's newsworthy for sure, and for plenty of reasons.
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    According to the World Health Organization, Zebov has
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    an average fatality rate of 83%,
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    but in some outbreaks it has killed more than 90% of the people it infected.
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    Ebola is a type of hemorrhagic fever,
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    which means one of its most prominent symptoms is heavy bleeding,
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    either internally or externally.
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    But blood loss isn't what kills its hosts.
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    After causing flu-like symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea,
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    Zebov targets the entire circulatory system,
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    causing blood vessels to fail, blood pressure to drop,
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    and, eventually, all of the major organs to shut down.
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    But let's check our heads for a minute.
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    For one thing, Ebola is definitely contagious,
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    but it's not as easily transmitted as the flu.
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    It's not an air-borne disease.
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    It's only contagious by infected people who are exhibiting
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    symptoms at the time, and even then it can only pass
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    through close contact with bodily fluids.
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    That's why most of the people who are getting infected
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    are health care workers working in pretty austere conditions,
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    or family members of patients who treat their loved ones at home,
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    and prepare their bodies for burial.
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    But being on the same airplane or in the same hospital ward
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    as an Ebola patient doesn't mean you've automatically
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    been exposed to the virus.
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    And, in another little glimmer of hope, it turns out that some people
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    have developed a natural immunity to Ebola.
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    A study in 2010 found that more than 15% of people
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    in the West African country of Gaban carry antibodies
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    for the Zebov virus, even though there's no record
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    of an Ebola outbreak there.
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    Researchers think that those people were exposed to the virus
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    over decades, probably through fruit that had been contaminated
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    by bats, which are the original carriers of the disease.
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    But instead of getting sick, these people just developed
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    natural defenses.
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    We're not sure why, but as you might imagine,
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    there is a lot of scientific interest in the people of Gaban right now.
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    And, of course, there's no vaccine for Ebola.
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    But many prototypes are being developed.
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    You may remember news we shared last year
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    about a breakthrough in this effort.
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    Biologists in Boston found that cells treated with a kind of compound
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    called Indoline Alkaloids blocked the ability of the Ebola virus
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    to replicate itself.
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    These alkaloids are the same class of chemicals that give many plants
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    their medicinal properties.
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    Trouble is, scientists haven't figured out why they work,
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    or how to turn them into an effective Ebola treatment.
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    But even beyond the short term risks of the current outbreak,
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    it's worth looking at the bigger picture.
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    The figures coming out of West Africa, while scary and tragic,
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    pale in comparison to other public health crises in the region.
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    Last week I mentioned that the incidence of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa
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    is still over 12% in some countries,
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    and more than 1.2 million people die from AIDS there every year.
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    Meanwhile, over 600,000 deaths occur every year due to Malaria.
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    The more attention that all of these public health crises get, the better.
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    So maybe the best outcome of this current scare might not be
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    the better treatment of Ebola, but also more money, science,
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    and brainpower being devoted to conquering even bigger threats
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    in West Africa and other parts of the world.
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    Thanks for watching Scishow News.
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    If you want to keep getting your science straight with us,
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    just go to youtube.com/scishow and subscribe.
Title:
What You Need to Know About Ebola
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Video Language:
English
Duration:
04:26
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