Ebola is possibly the closest thing we have had to a gruesome Medieval-style disease in over a century. It is causing a tragic number of deaths in Africa (estimates over 5,000 now) and increasingly people all over the world are looking on with fearful eyes wondering whether this is indeed the next plague that will wipe out mankind in true Hollywood Contagion fashion.

So as we spend £9m on screening at UK airports let’s get to know this nano-nemesis and what we can do to protect ourselves.

There are five viruses that make up the ebola virus family. Four of these viruses can infect humans and although they are probably very old we only discovered ebola in 1976. It is thought to be carried by bats that don’t seem to die from the virus. Contact with infected bats is the most likely way the virus gets into humans.

What makes ebola different from other viruses is the way it attaches to cells and what it makesthem do: it has receptors that act like suction cups. Once attached it highjacks our cells for its own purpose. That purpose is spread.

It achieves it through the most toe-curling symptom of ebola infection: bleeding. The virus wants to be able to spread around the body quickly and easily so it does two things: it makes blood vessels more leaky and stops blood clotting very well. These things combine to make blood vessels behave like a colander trying to hold water instead of a hose-pipe carrying raspberry smoothie. Blood leaks into the surrounding area, inside or outside the body.

On the up side, based on the current situation the likelihood of contracting ebola here in Oxford is incredibly low.

Ebola can only be passed on through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is infected – blood, saliva, mucous or semen. We aren’t entirely sure how long ebola can survive outside a host – it is probably somewhere between a few hours and a few days depending on the environment. However bleach and alcohol gel will kill the virus very effectively.

The best way to protect ourselves should we see ebola start to become a real threat in the UK is through hygiene standards – by always maintaining a barrier between the fluids of an infected person you should not get infected.

Keeping surfaces and hands clean with alcohol gel or cleaners is also very effective control.

There has been an all hands to the pump response from the world’s scientific community and a huge amount of money (many would say finally) thrown into efforts to find treatments and rapidly develop a vaccine.

The University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute is part of a global consortium leading the research with the World Health Organisation and many others.

The vaccine is likely to take around a year to become well enough tested to put into production and become widely available. Professor Adrian Hill is our resident vaccine guru having been a lead in the ongoing development of vaccines for malaria. The ebola trial has already begun right here in Oxford and the Jenner Institute has lots of information about what the trial is and whether you could get involved.

In the words of Professor Piot the scientist who discovered ebola: “We shouldn’t forget that this is a disease of poverty, of dysfunctional health systems – and of distrust.”

The threat to us is low and the threat globally is still much smaller than existing diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV.

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