TERROR has gripped West-African countries that include Sierra Leon, Nigeria and Liberia after being ravaged by the Ebola virus.
Two days to three weeks after contracting the virus, people infected start to have a fever.
This is followed by a sore throat, muscle pain and head-ache, typical common flue or malaria symptoms.
Soon after the nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea begins, followed with decreased functioning of the liver and kidneys.
It is usually around this time that some people begin to have bleeding problems.
This bleeding may occur within the body or externally which sometimes leads to death.
Less common symptoms include sore throat, chest pain, hiccups, shortness of breath and trouble in swallowing.
Africa is literally on the edge of her seat.
TheWorld Health Organisation (WHO) has already declared a global public health emergency.
This is not the first outbreak of the Ebola virus.
In 1976 the first two Ebola outbreaks were recorded in Zaire (DRC) and in Western Sudan.
About 550 people were affected and 340 died.
Again in 1995, Ebola reportedly broke out in Zaire, this time infecting over 200 and killing 160.
Currently, the WHO has issued preventive measures that include stopping the consumption of meat especially in countries affected by the Ebola virus.
According to ‘experts’ the virus is likely to have been transmitted from the bat eating culture of West Africa which started in the Congo.
This theory is similar to the HIV and AIDS virus that is said to have spread from gorillas from the Congo jungle that were used as a relish by the ‘starving Africans’.
This has aroused many debates and conspiracy theories as to where the Ebola virus originated.
This was also after Eric Pianka a distinguished award winning American scientist suggested that the Ebola virus is an example of how a population could be reduced naturally.
Dr Leonard Horowitz, an international authority on public health education, conducted a major study into the origin of HIV and AIDS and Ebola, questioning claims they are emerging viruses that jumped from ape to man.
In his book Emerging Viruses, he investigates the possibility the germs were laboratory creations, accidentally or intentionally transmitted via tainted hepatitis and smallpox vaccines.
He also examines CIA activities and foreign policy initiatives in Central Africa in response to alleged threats posed by communism, Black Nationalism and Third World populations.
This also supports the argument of one of the great American researchers and medical expert, Dr Allan Cantwell in his book AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the Epidemic.
“Many people think medical science is pure, but in reality, the study of medicine is saturated with politics, and what passes for ‘medical science’ is often a reflection of medical politics,” wrote Dr Cantwell.
Another author, Gary Glum, of Full Disclosure, fronts the theory that scientists at the Cold Spring Harbor lab in New York engineered HIV, and that the WHO spread the virus under cover of the smallpox eradication programme.
Glum believes the virus was created to wipe out, or at least control, the black population.
Through the biological warfare, United States has generated a lot of money through the manufacturing and sale of treatment drugs.
A lot of suspicion should be raised from the recent distribution of experimental, unlicensed Ebola drugs and vaccines in West Africa, under the approval of WHO.
The California-based manufacturer of the distributed drugs, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, said it had run out of treatment after responding to a request from an unidentified West African country.
There will be pressure on the company to manufacture more, following the WHO decision that its use, and that of other drugs yet to go through full clinical and human trials, is ethical in the current outbreak.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids of those infected.
There is no specific treatment for Ebola.
Patients can be given supportive care such as intravenous fluids so they can be kept hydrated.
Medical experts say if the host stays alive long enough, they can develop antibodies although they could still contract other strains of Ebola in the future.