• Question: is Ebola still a problem or is it almost contained fully

    Asked by LewLew_Greeny to Rosie, Liz, Kevin, Beccy on 20 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 20 Jun 2017:

      There are no human cases right now.
      But there are Ebola virus infections in bats all the time – though not all of the bats. And not the bats that live in the UK! So occasionally the virus will transmit from an animal (either a bat or something a bat infected) to a person. What we need to do as the public health community is to make sure that the person is correctly diagnosed as soon as possible – that doctors and nurses quickly look for other cases – and that all affected get the medical care they need. That means ensuring that patients don’t transmit to doctors or nurses and that no one gets infected while preparing the bodies of any fatal cases for burial. Most Ebola outbreaks are relatively small. The West African was most unusual.

    • Photo: Rosie Fok

      Rosie Fok answered on 20 Jun 2017:

      There was an outbreak of Ebola declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo on 12th May 2017.

    • Photo: Liz Buckingham-Jeffery

      Liz Buckingham-Jeffery answered on 21 Jun 2017:

      Following on from Rosie and Christl’s answers, the West African outbreak of Ebola was by far the worst Ebola outbreak there has even been. But before that, since it was identified in 1976, there were various smaller outbreaks. Each was at most a few hundred cases. And there will probably be future small outbreaks, like the most recent one in DRC.

      World Health Organisation (WHO) keep everyone informed about current outbreaks and have lots of useful information on their website.

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