The World of Ebolaviruses Trivia Quiz

Answer: Zaire

The outbreak in Sudan started in June 1976, while the outbreak in Zaire started two months later in August 1976. They were caused by two separate Ebolavirus strains - the Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV) and Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV). It was actually the Zaire strain that was discovered first, leading to the identification of the cause of the previous outbreak in Sudan.

Answer: Marburgvirus

Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus both belong to the family of Filoviridae, along with a few other lesser known viral genera. When the first Ebolavirus disease outbreak occurred, Marburgvirus was thought to be the cause until it was later determined to be a new, related species.

Answer: Ebola River

Newly discovered viruses were traditionally named after the place they were first identified. This has fallen out of favour recently as it creates unnecessary stigma around the place the virus is named after. In a great display of foresight, Ebolavirus was named after a nearby river rather than the village in which the outbreak occurred (Yambuku) to spare it from such a fate. Also known by its indigenous name Legbala, the Ebola River is a small tributary of the Congo River.

Answer: Ebola haemorrhagic fever

Ebolavirus infection causes decreased blood clotting. Though it doesn't occur in all cases, internal and external bleeding can result. Examples of bleeding include coughing up blood, vomiting blood, blood in stool, bruising, bleeding from needle puncture sites and bleeding into the whites of the eyes (conjunctiva). This often contributes to death from excessive fluid loss.

Answer: Sitting in the same room as an infected person and breathing in viral particles

High viral loads of Ebolavirus are shed in the bodily fluids of infected people, such as saliva, semen and breast milk. Contact with these bodily fluids, or objects that have been contaminated with them, is the source of transmission of Ebolaviruses. Transmission via the airborne route has not been demonstrated.

Answer: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone

The outbreak caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in these three countries. It also spawned much fear in the Western world, with many countries instituting restrictions on travel from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A total of seven cases were reported outside of Africa in four countries.

These were repatriated healthcare workers who had travelled to Western Africa to help manage the crisis. Thankfully, it did not spread further and eventually the efforts to control the outbreak in Western Africa proved successful.

Answer: 50%

Though the disease is very serious in its own right, some of the high case fatality rate can be attributed to substandard care in the under-resourced health systems of the countries where the majority of cases have occurred so far. Cases have thus far been managed only with supportive care.

This entails things like rehydration and electrolyte management which aim to keep the body in its ideal balanced state, but don't directly influence the progression of the infection itself. With new direct drug treatments and vaccinations being approved for use, hopefully we will see the case fatality rate drop in future outbreaks.

Answer: There exist multiple vaccines for the strain of Ebolavirus responsible for the majority of deaths

There are indeed now several effective vaccines for Ebolavirus (specifically the Zaire strain). They have been deployed in recent outbreaks in high risk individuals - contacts of infected people and their contacts, and front line medical personnel.

Unfortunately, doxycycline does not have any use in preventing Ebolavirus. However, there are two new drug treatments shown to be over 90% effective in preventing death, one of which has been approved by the FDA in the United States of America.

Because Ebolavirus has at least one animal reservoir, it is not currently thought to be a feasible target for an eradication program.

Answer: Reston Ebolavirus

The six species are Zaire, Sudan, Bundibugyo, Tai Forest, Reston and Bombali. The first four have caused disease in humans, while the latter two species have not yet caused symptomatic disease in humans despite being able to infect human cells.

Reston Ebolavirus has caused multiple outbreaks in primates in research facilities. It has been noted to cause asymptomatic infection in humans working closely with infected primates, but no symptoms or disease have been reported in humans.

Answer: Spillover from animal reservoirs

Human contact with infected animal reservoirs is thought to cause outbreaks. Animal reservoirs occur when a species can carry a virus without becoming sick, allowing the virus to spread amongst their population indefinitely and eventually spill over into other animals such as humans and primates. Bats are considered the most likely candidate though this has not been proven conclusively, and other animals such as rodents, insects and birds may also be involved.