OUTLINES MODE FOR CONTRACTING EBOLA
Infection occurs from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, or other bodily fluids or secretions (stool, urine, saliva, semen) of infected people
July 31, 2014 – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that doctors and other health workers attending to Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) patients are at higher risk of contracting the disease than any other person.
The warning came as many raise apprehension over safety of travelers, following outbreak of the disease in West African(Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since February.
“It’s vital for health care workers deployed by relief and similar organizations to come fully trained, equipped to help respond to Ebola,” WHO has said.
The issue of personal safety is a concern for response teams, especially for medical workers in direct contact with patients.
According to WHO Spokesman, Gregory Hart, it is impossible for travelers to contract the disease unless they actually touch someone who is showing active symptoms of EVD, adding that the patient becomes contagious once they begin to show symptoms. “They are not contagious during the incubation period”, the agency has said.
It is basically contracted through physical contact with affected person or animal WHO has said.
“Once a person comes into contact with an animal that has Ebola, it can spread within the community from human-to-human. Infection occurs from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, or other bodily fluids or secretions (stool, urine, saliva, semen) of infected people,” the agency has said.
According to WHO, symptoms include sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat are typical signs and symptoms, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.
