Open AccessEbola virus disease: Essential clinical knowledge
Author(s) -
Mahmoud Tawfik KhalafAllah,
Omar Ali Aboshady,
Shaban Ahmed Moawed,
Menna Said Ramadan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
avicenna journal of medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2249-4464
pISSN - 2231-0770
DOI - 10.4103/ajm.ajm_150_16
Subject(s) - ebola virus , medicine , outbreak , disease , intensive care medicine , transmission (telecommunications) , economic shortage , personal protective equipment , ebola hemorrhagic fever , infection control , health care , pandemic , medline , medical emergency , viral hemorrhagic fever , infectious disease (medical specialty) , virology , pathology , covid-19 , philosophy , economic growth , law , electrical engineering , economics , political science , engineering , linguistics , government (linguistics)
Since its initial outbreak in 1976, Ebola virus disease (EVD) has affected thousands of people, causing severe illness with high mortality rates. In the absence of a vaccine or effective specific treatment, as well as the lack of early diagnostic and detective methods, the EVD outbreak has generated a significant worldwide health concern. Insufficient health-care system resources, deficient infection control measures, and the shortage of appropriate personal protective equipment acted as amplifiers of the outbreak extension, especially in poorly resourced and unprepared communities. Operating on the frontlines, health-care workers must be familiar, not only with the identification of the disease, but also with the ability to protect themselves and initiate the appropriate response. This review seeks to provide essential information required to identify and manage the disease, with an emphasis on pathogenesis, transmission, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. We conducted a literature search in MEDLINE/PubMed and Google Scholar using the following keywords: “Ebola, Ebola virus disease, Hemorrhagic Fever, Outbreak.” We included all types of publications. To augment our study, we searched the reference lists of identified reviews.