Ebola is a worm like virus and once it enters a body, it attaches itself to the surface of cells, gets an entry inside the cell and uses the cells raw material to produce more of its kind. Eventually the original cell gets so packed with the baby viruses that it explodes, sending more of the infectious virus babies in the system carrying on with the process till the body’s immunity over-power them.
The burst of explosion and release of thousands of baby viruses into the body causes an inflammatory reaction mimicking Flue like reaction. This flue like reaction could be the first signs of an emerging Ebola infection.
A person can have the virus for up-to three weeks before the first symptoms start to show. The early symptoms are like a bad flu with high fever, body ache, headache, muscle soreness, sore throat and weakness. The current strain of virus (Ebola Zaire) is one of the deadliest of all the five known types of Ebola virus.
Once it is released into the blood vessels it reduces the ability of blood to form a clot and hence bruises and rash appear due to bleeding under the skin. There could also be bleeding from nose, eyes, ears etc and also into major body organs like liver, kidney and brain. This can cause multi organ failure.
Loss of blood due to failure to form a clot along with multi organ failure can cause death of a person within 1-2 weeks. The death rates in current epidemic are as high as 80-90% amongst people who catch the Ebola infection. Only an aggressive medical treatment in the form of intravenous fluids, blood transfusions and supportive treatment can save the life of a person.
Ebola spreads from coming in direct touch with body secretions of infected persons like urine, sweat, saliva, semen etc and is not spread through air. Contrary to popular fear perception, Ebola is very hard to catch and an infected person will only spread the infection once he gets the symptoms. So there is no chance that you would be caught unawares.
Best protection against Ebola is to not allow the virus to get inside your body through body openings like a cut etc. Wash your hands often with soap and water so in case the virus is sticking to your hands, it’ll not get to reach your eyes or inside your body anyhow. Avoid unnecessary physical contact like kissing or sex with people who have flu like symptoms and be safe.