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Have we learnedanything aboutEbola since1976?

This story was published: 1 DAY AGO OCTOBER 18, 2014 12:21PM

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Pigs, plants and the Black Death: Have we learnedanything about Ebola since 1976?

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YOU might think our knowledge of Ebola would have grown since the virus was

first diagnosed in 1976.

But looking at past reports, its not clear weve learned much.

With previous outbreaks affecting just a few hundred people a year, and mostly

confined to Africa, we may have been complacent.

But now cases number in the thousands, its time to consider whether we missed a

number of opportunities to prevent this crisis.

EMMA REYNOLDS

RIGHT NOW IN LIFESTYLE

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What is Ebola?

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YOU might think our knowledge of Ebola would have grown since the virus was

first diagnosed in 1976.

But looking at past reports, its not clear weve learned much.

With previous outbreaks affecting just a few hundred people a year, and mostly

confined to Africa, we may have been complacent.

But now cases number in the thousands, its time to consider whether we missed a

number of opportunities to prevent this crisis.

EMMA REYNOLDS


This story was published: 1 DAY AGO OCTOBER 18, 2014 12:21PM

SHARE TEXT SIZE

Pigs, plants and the Black Death: Have we learnedanything about Ebola since 1976?

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STORY BY

What is Ebola?

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iAnnotate UserFreeTextConfjne. ComplacentMay have been Just


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Ebola in the news from 1976 to 2014

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JULY 1979

Infectious plagues have not been, nor are they likely soon to be, eliminated from

our world, according to medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

The article compared Ebola with the lethal Marburg disease, noting that African

monkeys were not at first identified as sources of that virus.

Thus the origins of the devastating epidemics caused by Ebola virus in Sudan and

Zaire was completely obscure to the international teams rapidly assembled to deal

with them in 1976.

Mortality rates ranged from 50 to 60 per cent in Sudan to nearly 90 per cent in Zaire,

said the paper just like today.

Several features of these epidemics were noteworthy and frightening, it added,

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Several features of these epidemics were noteworthy and frightening, it added,

relating the death of a patient bleeding and in shock after a week of fever.

The Australian government bought 12 isolators to be used in case of infection. Source: Supplied

JANUARY 1982

Concerned by the spread of Ebola and other viruses to Europe and the US, the

Australian government bought 12 isolators for transporting infectious patients to

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Australian government bought 12 isolators for transporting infectious patients to

quarantine, The Canberra Times reported.

Doctors at Melbourne hospital Fairfield told the paper they hoped they would never

be needed.

The isolators were lightweight units that cost $1200 each and could be carried by

four people.

Each consisted of a stretcher to hold patient and air-supply unit, with a plastic cover

fitted with gloved sleeves suspended over it from a frame.

The contraptions were still being used six years later. The department of health said

that while the risk of a person contracting Lassa fever, Ebola, Marburg or Crimean-

Congo haemorrhagic fever was relatively low, it was a real risk.



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JULY 1991

Dr Murphy uses one word to describe his reaction to looking at an electron

microscope images of long, thin particles of the deadly Ebola virus: Scary.

The world was focused on the threat of AIDS, but an American scientist visiting

Australia warned that Ebola also posed a risk, The Canberra Times reported.

Dr Fred Murphy from the Centre for Infectious Disease Control in Georgia had

observed the Ebola virus in the 1970s, and in 1989 saw it isolated from monkeys

imported by air from the Philippines.

He showed that viruses that are harmless or only moderately lethal in monkeys

could cause lethal epidemics in a larger primate species namely, humans. It has

already happened at least three times.

The newspaper said AIDS seemed to have crossed to humans, probably in Africans

whose immune systems were weakened by malnutrition or the parasite diseases ...

The West may be paying a heavy price for its neglect of human health in ThirdThe West may be paying a heavy price for its neglect of human health in Third

World countries.


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A Canberra Times image from an Ebola story in 1995. Source: Supplied

MARCH 1995

A letter to ANU newspaper Woronis Weird Science column asked: How dangerous

are viruses and diseases to the human race? Could a virus like the Ebola virus or

AIDS make us extinct?

The writer replied that Ebola although hasnt gone to the outside world yet, lesser

versions of it have been known to kill large chunks of villages.

He described the virus as getting into the brain, sending the victim mad and breaking

down cell walls until they become a pile of goo.

He continued: If something like the Ebola virus hit somewhere in Australia, the area

would be sectioned off for a few weeks, confusion would reign, most people in the

area would die.

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A 1990s Ebola graphic from The Canberra Times shows we know little more now. Source: Supplied

MAY 1995

The World Health Organisation said deaths had reached their highest level since

1976, and that a second outbreak had occurred.

WHOs assistant director said Ebola was one of the deadliest viruses we know but

was not a public-health emergency in the sense of a wild spread.

Another WHO official said the virus seems to be a self-limiting disease, reported

the Associated Press.

WHO said two of three previous outbreaks had originated in hospitals with very poor

hygiene and a third was caused by African funeral rituals that involve cutting open a

corpse.

Once you institute precautions, and make sure youre not using contaminated

needles, you can contain the virus, said CDC infectious disease specialist Dr Ruth

Berkelman.

But the head of WHOS Africa office said the danger of the virus spreading could

not be ruled out with the Congolese city of Kikwit (site of the second outbreak)

accessible by air.




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SEPTEMBER 1999

The hunt for a cure was on, with the Times Higher Education Supplement looking at

research into a folk cure used in traditional African medicine.

It said that little was known of the molecular biology of the virus or the mechanisms

by which it caused disease.

A plant extract derived from the seeds of the Garcinia kola tree was believed by the

Bio-Resources Development and Conservation program to inhibit the virus.

The Maryland institute now needed funding to develop the research, wrote The

Times, but the main barrier may be financial.

Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to invest resources in the development of

drugs against extremely rare tropical diseases, it added.

An Ebola virus image from a 1999 Stanford medical paper. Source: Supplied


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DECEMBER 2000

With annual cases in the hundreds again, the New York Times related the tales of

Ebola survivors.

Ugandans who had seen others die in pools of blood told of spouses leaving them

and neighbours burning belongings and even homes, despite their poverty.

Many were shunned by their communities, or had walls built around them as fearMany were shunned by their communities, or had walls built around them as fear

spread. An education campaign was in progress to ensure survivors were accepted

back into their towns.

There were four known strains, with the worst still killing 90 per cent of those who

caught it.

The article reported that the outbreak appeared to have run its course. But a Ugandan

Red Cross worker admitted: Even now, Im afraid. If you joke with Ebola it will

joke with you.

Contemporary artwork from the Black Death. Source: News Limited

FEBRUARY 2002

Could Ebola have been behind the Black Death? asked ABC News.

Researchers said the speed of the medieval illnesss spread tallied with Ebola more

than the bubonic plague.

They said that historical descriptions of the Black Death sounded like the

haemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola-like virus.

Such fever strikes fast and causes blood vessels to burst underneath the skin,

bringing out welts, similar to what British medical texts from the Middle Agesbringing out welts, similar to what British medical texts from the Middle Ages

describe as Gods tokens, they noted.


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The search for a drug that can fight Ebola continues. Source: AFP

NOVEMBER 2012

Ebola had by now been linked with fruit bats, monkeys, insects, birds and pigs but

now a study suggested that the deadliest form of the virus could be transmitted by air

between species, said the BBC.

Scientists from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found that pigs infected with

this form of Ebola could pass the disease on to macaques without any direct contact

between the species.

Dr Gary Kobinger said that if pigs did play a role in human outbreaks it would be a

very easy point to intervene. It would be easier to vaccinate pigs against Ebola than

humans.

Dr Larry Zeitlin, president of Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, told BBC News: Its an

impressive study that not only raises questions about the reservoir of Ebola in the

wild, but more importantly elevates concerns about Ebola as a public health threat.

The thought of airborne transmission is pretty frightening.

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