Ebola
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Whoa, did you know that our plane has four emergency exits, two fore and two aft?
00:13Three fruit and cheese plates for my droid, please.
00:19Oh, would you relax?
00:23I feel perfectly...
00:24Fine.
00:30Dear Tim and Moby, I've been seeing a lot of scary stuff about Ebola in the news.
00:35Am I in danger?
00:37Help!
00:38From Aaron.
00:39Hi, Aaron.
00:41The short answer is, probably not.
00:44The Ebola virus normally stays inside certain animals in the tropics of Africa.
00:49Every couple of years, the virus crosses into a person and causes an outbreak.
00:55That's when a disease suddenly starts spreading.
00:58But Ebola outbreaks rarely spread very far, so unless you live in one of those places,
01:04your chances of getting sick are close to zero.
01:07Compare that to the flu, which is spread by a different virus.
01:11It's so common, there's a worldwide season for it every year.
01:17A virus is a tiny organic particle that infects living cells.
01:22Every virus has one goal, to replicate or make copies of itself.
01:26To do that, it needs the machinery of a living cell.
01:29So it infects an organism and uses its cells to reproduce.
01:33Often, this is bad news for the host, the living thing the virus has infected.
01:40The effects can be minor, like the runny nose and headaches of the common cold virus.
01:45They can also be deadly, as in the case of the HIV virus.
01:49Right, there are effective treatments for HIV, but still none for Ebola.
01:54So there's no stopping its progress when it infects someone.
01:58The early stages are a lot like the flu, with fever, muscle pain, nausea, and headaches.
02:05As it spreads, the virus tricks the body into attacking its own veins and arteries.
02:10This leads to hemorrhaging, or internal bleeding.
02:13The virus also causes blood to clot, or clump up in places.
02:17That can block arteries, cutting off oxygen to important organs like the heart, liver,
02:22and brain.
02:25In about half of all cases, the body can fight off the infection.
02:29In the other half, blood pressure keeps dropping, organs shut down, and the patient dies.
02:35That's what has some people so scared.
02:39Fortunately, Ebola doesn't spread very easily.
02:43Well, viruses depend on their hosts to carry them around so they can infect others.
02:49That's why a virus like the common cold is so successful.
02:52It only makes you a little sick, so you go about your life and infect lots of other people.
02:56Plus, it's airborne.
02:58If you sneeze or cough, the virus can stay suspended in the air for hours.
03:03If anyone inhales it, they can get sick too.
03:06But Ebola isn't like that.
03:09First, when people are most contagious with it, they're not in any shape to walk around.
03:15And it can only infect those who touch their bodily fluids, like sweat, blood, or saliva.
03:21That's why Ebola most commonly spreads to close family members and medical staff, not
03:26random strangers.
03:30Scientists suspect that a type of African bat might act as a reservoir host for Ebola.
03:35That's an organism in which a virus normally thrives without making it sick.
03:40If an infected animal's fluids get inside someone, the virus can cross over.
03:45Once that person infects someone else, it's the start of an outbreak.
03:50The first outbreak was in 1976, near the Ebola River in what's now the Democratic Republic
03:55of the Congo.
03:57This outbreak and most of those that followed began in remote villages.
04:01That limited the scope of the infections.
04:04But all that changed in late 2013, with an outbreak in the West African nation of Guinea.
04:09It wasn't identified as Ebola for several months, and by then it had spread to cities.
04:14By the middle of 2014, thousands of people in nearby countries had been infected.
04:20And in October, a traveler from Liberia unknowingly brought it to the United States.
04:25Well, he wasn't sick when he traveled.
04:29It can take up to three weeks for Ebola to make you sick, and you're not contagious
04:33until then.
04:34But don't worry.
04:35So far, the cases in the U.S. have been limited to just a few people.
04:41Hospitals here are much better equipped to care for these patients.
04:43First, they're put in isolation, kept strictly apart from everybody else.
04:49Their blood pressure and oxygen are constantly supported.
04:52This gives their immune system a chance to fight off the infection.
04:56If it can do that, the patient is cured and is no longer contagious.
05:02There are several vaccines in development that may one day give people immunity to the
05:05virus, and researchers are working on new medicines that will fight the infection.
05:13I know, but it's important to keep all this in perspective.
05:16The number one enemy isn't Ebola, it's ignorance and panic.
05:20Every outbreak before has been stopped in its tracks without vaccines or cures.
05:26All it takes is for everyone to pull together, stay calm, and stay informed.
05:31Yes, I will have the sushi, please.