Having worked with live viruses and in particular live RNA directed viruses, I want to make this easy as possible; but feel free to Google: Ebola strains and variants. Also there was mini outbreak of the Ebola strain in Virginia a little while ago.
Ebola is a RNA based virus that lives and requires a very specific environment and host; human beings who are accidentally exposed to that host or that environment can become infected; the fact of the matter just like the Hepatitis B and C and even Polio which are RNA viruses, along with Swine flu is the we know that humans are exposed to these viruses but it actually clears the body and people don't even know they have had it. The reason there is no vaccine is that there are FOUR variant strains which have different hosts and environments. Genetically, Ebola does not have much to work with; it mutates, short lived and it must be in the right host and environment, if not it simply dies out, which is why there are so reservoirs in vector species which are contacts with humans all the time, example Bats.The idea of an Ebola Vaccine will not WORK because there are four variations and no one has found the "antibody" serum that will work against it in human beings; and even if they could somehow figure that out it would cost a couple billion dollars. and guess what? We need to conserve our research money for AMERICAN diseases--not exotic diseases in micro reservoirs in West Africa where the hygiene is egregious as well we are not sure about their food sources. So forget that idea right now.
The two Americans who were sent here were treated with the extremely small experimental treatment serum that we have in this country that were used in primate experiments where antibody serum was derived from primates deliberately exposed to Ebola. SEE article.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/west-african-ebola-outbreak-international-emergency-article-1.1896274
If you have more questions.. just read about the mini outbreak
http://www.sciencedigest.org/EBOLA.HTM
For more about the outbreak in Virginia, US, see Reston virus.
The name of the disease originates from one of those first recorded outbreaks in 1976 in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire), which lies on the Ebola River.[123]
While investigating an outbreak of Simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV) in November 1989, an electron microscopist from USAMRIID discovered filoviruses similar in appearance to Ebola in tissue samples taken from crab-eating macaque (these are primates, monkeys) imported from the Philippines to Hazleton Laboratories Reston, Virginia.[126] Blood samples were taken from 178 animal handlers during the incident.[127] Of those, six animal handlers eventually seroconverted. When the handlers did not become ill, the CDC concluded that the virus had a very low pathogenicity to humans.[128]
In 1990, Hazelton Research Products' Reston Quarantine Unit in Reston, Virginia, suffered a mysterious outbreak of fatal illness among a shipment of crab-eating macaque monkeys imported from the Philippines. The company's veterinary pathologist sent tissue samples from dead animals to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where a laboratory test known as an ELISA assay showed antibodies to Ebola virus.
Shortly afterward, a US Army team headquartered at USAMRIID went into action to euthanize the monkeys which had not yet died, bringing those monkeys and those which had already died of the disease to Ft. Detrick for study by the Army's veterinary pathologists and virologists, and eventual disposal under safe conditions.
The Philippines and the United States had no previous cases of Ebola infection, and upon further isolation, researchers concluded it was another strain of Ebola, or a new filovirus of Asian origin, which they named Reston ebolavirus (REBOV) after the location of the incident.[129]
Some scientists also believe that the Plague of Athens, which wiped out about a third of its inhabitants during the Peloponnesian War, may have been caused by Ebola. However, these studies are conflicting, and point to other possible diseases such as typhoid.[130]]
A note on the above article.. a macaque is a primate, like a monkey,, and I just wanted to also say the term "sero-converted means that they produced "antibodies'" to the Ebola-like virus, (called here Filovirus because it causes hemorrhagic fever and other related taxonomic features, look it up).. but sero-conversion means that that they GOT WELL,, or as we say, the virus cleared their body because enough antibodies were produced in one's own body to get rid of the viruses and over time they were well; like I said when I started this article.
So, even though I hope that "super special antibody antidote is healing the American Doctor and the missionary, and I would have chosen to get it as well, it maybe that they are clearing it naturally. Just like with the so called swine flu pandemic, the symptoms were so mild many people had it and it was just a "light flu" and other people got it and reacted severely to the same flu.
While I am on the topic since I haven't been on Science is Political or posted for a while; I just recently found out that because of the Human Genome project it has been found that while some people get Hepatitis A and B; naturally "clear" or sero-convert (I had to get the immunization because I worked in a hospital where I handled blood directly from patients) but there is a Genetic reason why! which I can't find right now.
I just thought, since I got my "new glasses".. so I can work on line for a little longer than usual on one of my favorite topics: Science. Ok.. later.
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