The 2014-2016 outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa was aggravated by several risk factors including, a new context an old disease, overreliance on traditional healers, high movement across the borders, and shortage of healthcare workers. Previously, West Africa had never experienced an Ebola virus outbreak and when the first case appeared, it was misdiagnosed to a viral hemorrhagic fever (Cancedda et al, 2016). Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis.Clinicians and medical professionals took several months before making the right diagnosis to the disease. Therefore, when the right diagnosis was made the Ebola virus had spread and crossed to other countries beyond the Guinea borders. In addition, West Africa countries were unfamiliar with the Ebola virus disease right from the onset, to its presentation as well as how to manage the disease. Medical professionals in West Africa had not previously handled any Ebola virus case and the laboratories didn’t have the right regimen to test the virus. In addition, governments in West Africa countries had never witnessed economic and social turmoil that come along with a disease outbreak.Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis.
Secondly, West Africa is known to overly rely on traditional healers even prior to the outbreak. Inaccessibility to government healthcare facilities has made traditional herbalists a platform to treat moat of the diseases (Crook et al, 2016). Most upsurges during the pandemic were related to cases who previously got help from the traditional herbalist before seeking medical intervention. The community in West Africa also perceive hospital buildings more like places because they are hidden behind high fences.Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis.
In addition, West Africa is known to have the highest movement across the porous borders. Mobility across the borders in West Africa is the highest in the world at seven times higher. The high mobility rate is cause by poverty levels in West African countries. People keep moving in search for food and employment opportunities. Due to the high movement rate, most West African families have relatives in other countries (Coltart et al, 2017). Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis.Therefore, the population mobility made it hard for the public health officers to contain the Ebola virus outbreak. Tracing of cases was difficult because people were always on the move. In addition, communities in West Africa believe in burying their loved ones in their ancestral land. Therefore, whenever a person died in another country, they had to be moved to their motherland thus exposing the population to further infections.Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis.
Prior to the Ebola virus outbreak the doctors in West Africa were overworked with almost one doctor handling more than 100,000 population. The workload even became higher because a number of health workers were infected by the virus and some even lost their lives. Curbing further spread of the disease became harder because some patients would even go back home unattended to (Cancedda et al, 2016). In addition, the diagnostic process took long because the healthcare workers were very few. The longer it took diagnose a patient the riskier it became for further spread of the virus.Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis.
B2. Route of Transmission
The transmission of Ebola virus happens when a person comes into directly contacted with body fluids and blood of an infected person. Body fluids like sweat, semen, vomit, diarrhea and urine of an infected person contain the virus. In addition, Ebola is transmitted through coming into contact with surfaces and objects with contamination caused by fluids and blood from an infected person. Infection from one person to another only happens when the infected person has started showing the Ebola virus symptoms. However, Ebola cannot be spread through casual contact, food, water or air. Transmission of Ebola virus also comes from infected animals or animals that died from the virus (Cancedda, 2016).Strengthening health systems while responding to a Health Outbreak Crisis. The animal carrying the Ebola virus have not been discovered yet but it has been found in apes, bats and monkeys. Therefore, it is necessary to keep a distance from already infected persons to avoid further spread of the virus. Howev
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