By Karin Schimke

Scientists and virologists do not know where the Ebola virus comes from and do not know of a vaccine against it or a drug to treat it.

The Ebola virus is one in a group of viral haemorrhagic fevers which cause uncontrolled bleeding through all orifices, the skin and internally. When the patient is not treated in hospital, the disease more often than not ends in death due to complications like kidney failure, heart failure, pneumonia or shock.

Patients usually start feeling the effects of the virus with common symptoms like headaches, muscle aches, fever, vomiting or diarrhoea. As their health deteriorates, bleeding abnormalities set in, so that patients often vomit blood or have bloody stools.

Ebola, much like HIV, can only be contracted through direct contact with body fluids. This was the reason the infection was mostly contracted by health workers and their immediate families, the people that would care for and clean ill patients. The body fluids would only infect another person if they enter the skin through a scratch or some other open wound.

An Ebola carrier can also spread the virus by having sex. Even if a patient survives, the virus can still be spread sexually for up to two months afterwards because it is believed it remains in genital secretions for some time after recovery.