Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Hello readers,

The next cancer that I will be discussing is acute lymphoblastic leukemia, one of the few types of leukemia cancers. Also known by its shorthand ALL or acute lymphoid leukemia, this cancer is an acute form of leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells, causing the overproduction of cancerous, immature white blood cells that are known as lymphoblasts. When these lymphoblasts are overproduced in the bone marrow, they continually multiply, which in turn causes damage and death by inhibiting the production of normal cells such as red and white blood cells and platelets in the bone marrow and by spreading to other organs. ALL is most common in childhood.

It is classified according to the type of the white blood cells affected. There are two types: lymphocytes which are mostly used to fight viral infections, and neutrophils, which have multiple functions, such as fighting bacterial infections, defense against parasites and prevention of the spread of tissue damage. Lymphoblastic leukaemia is a cancer of the lymphocytes.

All the blood cells in the body are produced by the bone marrow, a spongy material found inside bones. The bone marrow produces specialized cells called stem cells which have the ability to develop into three blood cells: red blood cells which carry oxygen around the body, white blood cells that fight injections and platelets which act as coagulants so help stop bleeding. Stem cells would fully develop before being released into the blood. However, in acute leukemia, bone marrow releases large numbers of immature white blood cells. As the number of these immature white blood cells increase, there is a drop in the number of red blood and platelet cells. This causes symptoms of anemia, such as tiredness, and increases the risk of excessive bleeding. The immature white blood cells are less effective at fighting bacteria and viruses, which results in increased vulnerability to infection.

Symptoms

The cause of leukemia are uncertain, but there are known risk factors which include exposure to high levels of radiation or exposure to benzene, a chemical used in manufacturing that is also found in cigarettes. The symptoms are usually slow to begin with before getting rapidly severe as the number of immature of white blood cells in blood increase. They include pale skin, tiredness, breathlessness, repeating infections over a short space of time and unusual and frequent bleeding.

Treatment

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is treated usually by a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, however, in some cases, treatment may also include a bone marrow transplant as a cure. Without treatment, there is a risk that the lack of healthy blood cells can make the person vulnerable to life-threatening infections due to the lack of white blood cells or uncontrolled and serious bleeding due to the lack of platelets. For children, the outlook is usually good - almost all children will be in remission and 85% completely cured. However, the outlook for adults are not as good, as only 40% of people with the condition will be completely cured.

Hodgkin's Lymphoma

Hello readers,

I hope you all had a merry Christmas and wonderful holiday! It may not be the a very festive post today but since I heard some sad news that a very dear friend of mine was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and never hearing of it before, I thought that it would be a good idea to spend some time writing on the disease to shed some light on for those who may want to learn more about it.

To understand Hodgin's, it is helpful to have a basic understanding of the lymphatic system. It is a system that is one of the body's defenses against infections and diseases made up of lymphatic organs such as bone marrow, tonsils, thymus, spleen and lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are throughout the body, although are mainly found in the neck, armpit and groin, and are connected by a network of tiny lymphatic tubes. Circulating in the lymphatic vessels are a fluid called lymph that contains something called lymphocytes which are also known as white blood cells. They are a significant part of our immune system, essential at fighting viruses, bacteria and other foreign bodies that threaten our health. They are produced inside the bone marrow and stored in our blood and lymphatic tissues.

As lymph circulates the body, the fluid passes through the lymph nodes which filter out bacteria that cause infection. Sometimes, if you have a cold, the lymph nodes in your neck may get larger which is a sign that your body is fighting the infection. There are two main types of white blood cells (lymphocyte) - T-cells and B-cells. While both types develop in the bone marrow from immature cells to stem cells, T-cells mature in the thymus gland and B-cells mature in the bone marrow or lymphatic organs.

Here is a diagram showing the lymphatic system is green all over the body.

In summary, the lymphatic system is composed of a series of vessels that are all over the body which drain fluid from tissues. Bacteria and other microbes are picked up in the lymphatic fluid and trapped inside lymph nodes where they are attacked and destroyed by white blood cells.

Hodgkin's Lymphoma
It is a cancer of the lymphatic system and can be divided into two main types:
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Its cause is unknown, however, there are some risk factors that may contribute to its development including poor immunity and previous exposure to the Epstein Barr virus which causes glandular fever. It is most common in younger people aged 20-34 and older people aged 70-79. Having a member of the family with Hodgkin lymphoma may slightly increase someone's risk of getting it, but it is not known whether this is caused by an inherited faulty genes or because families may have similar lifestyle factors that affect their risk.

Symptoms
The first is usually a swelling in the neck, armpit or groin which are usually painless but some find that they ache. Other symptoms may include frequent sweats, especially at night, unexplained high temperatures, weight loss, tiredness, a cough or breathlessness or a persistent itch all over the body. A few people with Hodgkin lymphoma have abnormal cells in their bone marrow when diagnosed which can lower the number of healthy blood cells in the blood which in turn, can cause breathlessness and tiredness, increased risk of infection and/or excessive bleeding. When diagnosing a patient, the doctor may take blood tests and a chest x-ray and a definite diagnosis is made by a biopsy where the removal of an enlarged lymph node or part of it is examined under a microscope.

Staging

• Stage 1: one group of lymph nodes is affected
• Stage 2: two or more groups of lymph nodes are affected on the same side of the diaphragm 
• Stage 3: lymph nodes above and below the diaphragm are affected
• Stage 4: the lymphoma has spread outside the lymph nodes to organs such as the liver, bones or lungs

If the Hodgkin lymphoma comes back after initial treatment, this is known as recurrent lymphoma. As well as a stage, doctors use a letter: A or B, to show whether or not you have certain symptoms (unexplained high temperatures, drenching night sweats, for example). If the patient doesn't have these symptoms, the doctor will prescribe the letter A next to the stage. If the patient has one or more of these symptoms, the letter B is prescribed next to the stage.  

Treatment

Luckily, with current treatment the majority of people with Hodgkin's lymphoma can be cured. The main types of treatment are chemotherapy and radiotherapy and a treatment plan would be decided based on the results of the staging tests and other factors such as age, general health, what parts of the body is affected and specific type of Hodgkin lymphoma. 

Chemotherapy involves the use of anti-cancer, also known as cytotoxic, drugs to destroy the lymphoma cells by disrupting their growth and can reach lymphoma cells anywhere in the body through the bloodstream. The drugs can be administered as tablets or capsules or by injection into a vein in your arm which is called intravenously. A combination of several drugs is normally given over a few days followed by a break and would continue from 2 to 6 months depending on the stage of lymphoma.

Radiotherapy treats cancer by the use of high-energy rays that destroy the cancer cells while doing as little harm as possible to normal cells because it only treats the area of the body it is aimed at. This is usually provided after a course of chemotherapy for early-stage disease as part of the overall treatment. In more advanced stage disease, it may be used after after chemotherapy to treat areas where there may still be cancer. 

Another treatment is called high-dose treatment with stem cell support for Hodgkin lymphoma. This is a high-dose chemotherapy treatment if the standard chemotherapy had not completely gotten rid of the disease and may also be used if the lymphoma reoccurs. High doses of chemotherapy destroy the bone marrow where blood cells are usually made which means stem cells must be collected from your body at a time when you are well - this is called stem cell harvest. The stem cells are collected by a process where blood is removed through a needle in your arm and it is then passed through a machine called a cell separator where stem cells are separated from the rest of your blood. Alternatively, stem cells can be collected from your bone marrow. Stem cells are then frozen and kept in storage until the patient receives high-dose treatment and once it is administered, stem cells are thawed and given back through a drip to support their immune system.

Steroid therapy involves steroids, such as prednisolone or dexamethasone, which are drugs that are often given with chemotherapy to help treat Hodgkin lymphoma which may help the patient feel better and reduce nausea.

Possible long-term effects from the treatment may be permanent infertility from some chemotherapy drugs. Both chemotherapy and radiotherapy can also lead to a slightly increased risk of developing another cancer later in life. 

Hope this has been informative and, as always, thanks for reading  

Plans for Mars

Hello readers!

Recent reports on Mars have been discussing the speculation of possible form of life on the red planet due to Nasa's rover, Curiosity's detection of fluctuating wafts of methane. These unexplained spikes of methane levels detected, unable to be easily correlated by geology or transportation of organic material by comets or asteroids, has resulted in a few hypotheses including the suggestion that these spikes offer evidence of life on Mars.

Only last year the US space agency reported that Gale Crater, located on the Martian equator when a meteor hit the planet, contained the remains of an ancient freshwater lake that may have once been a hospitable environment for life in the past. The latest discovery adds to the possibility of gathered evidence of life on Mars. Curiosity recorded a 10-fold increase in methane in the atmosphere, additionally detecting other organic molecules in powdered rock that was obtained by the rover's drill, becoming the first definitive detection of organics in surface materials on Mars. These could have formed either on Mars or landed on Mars by meteorites. The spikes in methane are provoked interest as life is the main producer of methane on Earth, however, many non-biological processes can also generate the gas. Speculation on the methane fluctuations have included the idea of the Sun's rays degrading organic material deposited by meteors and methane being formed by microbial bugs that are known as methanogens.   

Named after the Roman god of war and dubbed the red planet due to its iron-rich minerals that cover the surface that give it a rusty red color, Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun that has the largest volcanoes in the solar system as well as the highest mountain and deepest valley. It has a cold, thin atmosphere which means that liquid water cannot currently exist on the Martian surface for any length of time, resulting in the desert planet having the same amount of dry land as Earth despite being half in diameter. With channels, valleys and gullies discovered across Mars, this suggests that liquid water may have flowed across the planet's surface in recent times and may still lie in cracks and pores in underground rock. Cooler than Earth, its average temperature is roughly minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, however, it can vary depending on time and season. Its carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere means that it is dense enough to support weather, clouds and winds. NASA's detection of carbon-dioxide snow clouds makes Mars the only body in the solar system known to host winter weather. However, dust storms also occupy the planet, capable of lasting for months resulting in blanketing the entire planet.   

The possibility of life on Mars was first considered in 1996 when Geologist David McKay and his colleagues discovered in the rocks blasted from the surface of Mars grains of a mineral called magnetite that can form within certain kinds of bacteria and tiny structures that resembled fossilized microbes. The hypothesis that Mars may have once possessed oceans on its surface offer the opinion that it provided an environment where life can develop, a hypothesis further established with the discovery of the lake when beforehand establishing the planet had key ingredients present for life to evolve.   

Currently in process is an important development in space exploration; the Mars One Mission that aims to establish a human settlement on Mars. This project involves firstly building Earth-based simulation outposts for training, technology, try-outs and evaluation and the construction of rocket launches that would take payloads into Earth orbit and then onto Mars that include satellites, rovers, cargo or humans. Other necessities would include the Mars Transit Vehicle that would ensure the travel of human crew in space and a landing capsule that would carry life support unites, living units, rovers and mars suits. People are currently going through a vigorous process to be one of the chosen humans to be a part of the Mars One crew, who would have to go through eight years of training isolated from the world for several months every two years before being considered to settle permanently on Mars. So it seems that while we have yet to know whether life was or is on Mars for certain, the future ahead is dedicated to the emigration of humans to live on the red planet.

Thank you for reading!

Sources

http://www.space.com/47-mars-the-red-planet-fourth-planet-from-the-sun.html
http://www.mars-one.com/mission/humankind-on-mars
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/16/methane-spikes-mars-fuel-speculation-life-nasa-curiosity

The Rosetta Mission

It was a mission that will go down in history, though perhaps not as amazing as man's first step on the Moon, but when the European Space Agency's one-billion-pound Rosetta probe swooped down over comet 67P and, from an altitude of 20km, released the robotic lander known as Philae, on descent to its surface, it was an incredible scientific feat. It may not have been 'one step for mankind' but that bounce over the comet culminated into a success after ten years of planning to occur beyond the orbit of Mars watched by the world. 

What was it?

The International Rosetta Mission was approved in ESA's Horizons 200 Science Programme 21 years ago in 1993. In those decades, scientists and engineers all over the world built an orbiter and lander for this expedition in order to discover and explore the secrets of the comet. Rosetta would, once landing on the Comet 67P, cross the asteroid belt and travel into deep space, more than five times the Earth's distance from the Sun. In 2015 when the mission will draw the close, the spacecraft and comet will have circled the Sun and be on their way out of the inner Solar System. The success of the mission is historic one. Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to orbit a comet's nucleus, fly alongside a comet as it heads towards the inner Solar system, and examine from close proximity how a frozen comet is transformed by the warmth of the Sun. One arriving at the Comet 67P, the orbiter will despatch Philae, the robotic lander, and its instruments will obtain images from the comet's surface and analyse its components. Once passing through the main asteroid belt, Rosetta will the first ever spacecraft to fly close to Jupiter's orbit using solar cells as its main power source.

Why do it?

Mainly to investigate the components of the comet that will be extracted by the lander and then fed back to Earth. The elements that make up the comet: complex organic molecules rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, are the elements that make up nucleic and amino acids, the essential elements for life as we know it. Analysis of these elements may help answer some fundamental questions such as: did life on Earth begin with the help of comet seeding?

What happened?

The landing was not smooth: it bounced twice and culminated into a triple touchdown on Wednesday. Resting on its side, lodged in the shadows, the lander sent back historic images taken from the surface of the comet. As its landing left it surrounded by rocks, Philae then was only able to receive just 1.5 hours of sunlight instead of the expected 6 to 7 hours. However, despite this, the lander deployed a 1.2 metre arm and drill, accomplishing its primary mission to last around 60 hours on its initial battery charge and obtaining data on the surface of the comet. The drilling operation was deployed in order deliver samples to onboard instruments. The Cometary Sampling and Composition experiment instrument was chosen in order to study the first samples, and it works by detecting and identifying complex organic molecules from their molecular composition. The instrument detected and analyzed these moles of gas that naturally came off the comet's surface. The lander, however, did run out of power although there were some attempts to move it towards better sunlight in order for its solar panels to obtain more energy. Though the lander has now effectively gone to sleep, when the comet heads for its approach to the Sun that will occur in August 2015, by bringing the lander closer to sunlight, Philae may then power up.

What will happen next?

Dear Philae provided everything expected from it before it powered down, transmitting all the science data in the first sixty hours. As well as sending images and exercising of its Consert instrument that try to discern its internal structure, it can possibly be used to triangulate its precise position. Knowledge of its location would enable engineers to understand its future prospects. For now, Rosetta will continue to observations the 67P comet and we can admire the captured images



Thanks for reading!

The Anti-Aging Drug

Want to live forever? Or, alternatively, would you like to age well and healthy? Well, you can if you're a mouse. If, however, you are not a mouse that has mastered to ability to read blogs on Google and are a simple human being like myself, while there is still some time before anti-aging drugs become a possibility, there are some promising developments. Anti-Aging drugs may actually be a reality for the future as the current development of anti-aging compounds that Australian and US researchers have studied, have discovered a key breakthrough that saw the aging process reversed in mice.  

Exciting stuff.

This study discovered a possible way of restoring the efficiency of cells that would enable the reversal of the aging process in muscles. What occurred in the experiment is as follows: two-year-old mice were given a compound over a week,which resulted in moving back certain key indicators of ageing to that of a six-month-old mouse. This can be seen as the equivalent of an 60-year-old feeling more like a 20-year-old. This research has been concentrated on the area of cells, mitochondria, an place of which energy is produced from respiration. Over time, the communication between the mitochondria and the cell nucleus degrades, which leads to the aging process. Researchers have injected a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide - NAD - which reduces in the body as we age. The addition of this compound results in a radical reversal in the aging of mice.

Trials on humans are hoped to begin as soon as next year, with researchers confident that side-effects will be minimal due to the fact that the compound NAD is a naturally produced product. This possible advancement of biomedical science into age reversal could be used to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia and diabetes. Therefore, ant-aging research goals are not to enable people to live forever but for people to remain healthy longer into old age; a current issue as older people are now living much longer. 

Another advancement in this field has been explored in the tests on yeast, worms and mice who have all been treated with various chemical compounds in laboratory tests that have led to their living longer. As trials in humans have failed, reseachers are not proposing a different approach to animal testing: trials in pet dogs. Their target is rapamycin, which has been used clinically as part of an anti-rejection drug cocktail after kidney transplants in order prevent the body from rejecting its new organ. However, rapamycin has also shown promising results in extending the lives of mice by 13 percent in females and 9 percent in males.

This compound has yet to be tested in human trials due to its cost and the length of time necessary to be taken in order to learn whether the drug can extend a human life. Another issue is that rapamycin is no longer patenable so pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to invest in it. Additionally, the drug may also cause some serious side effects, for example, it has been linked to an increased risk of diabetes in people who have undergone kidney transplants. However, researchers have argued that at low doses, the drug will not be an issue for healthy dogs. 

Molecular biologists, Matthew Kaeberlein and Daniel Promislow from the University of Washington have proposed to give low doses of rapamycin to dogs in a study to test whether the drug can extend the animals' lives. The specific dogs to be testsed would be larger dogs that typically live for eight to ten years. Their proposal is that they would start giving the drug to dogs aged six to nine. In a pilot trial that would involve around thirty dogs, where half would receive the drug and their heart function and health measures would be observed. This trial aims to be completed in around three years.

Why dogs?

Scientists argue that pet dogs should provide a more realistic test than lab mice of how the drug would work in humans. In addition to this, pets experience some of the same environmental influences and sometimes get similar age-related diseases as their owners. Again, funding and time are important considerations in trials aiming to understand the mechanism of life-extending effects. As dogs are people's beloved pets, this may also be a later problematic hindrance to these planned trials. It has been considered whether pet owners could be asked to help fund a bigger trial, and whether researchers could promise in return that the pet owners who contribute mean that their dogs would be treated with rapamycin rather than a placebo without compromising the study. 

Why Rapamycin?

A protein kinase that controls cell growth and survival, little is actually known about how it can extend life. It is currently used to prevent transplant rejection as it has the ability to suppress the immune system. It characterized as such as by inhibiting the activation and proliferation of T-cells. This occurs by specifically acting on a FK-binding protein 12, commonly referred to as an immunophilin because it binds to immunosuppressive drugs. This complex then binds to a target of rapamycin, a kinase that regulates the progression of the cell cycle. The binding process results in the inhibition of the kinase, disrupts cell division, and hence the proliferation of T-cells - therefore the immune system is repressed.

 This diagram shows the process described above: how rapamycin, by acting on a FK-binding protein 12, becomes FKBP12, which in turn, then binds to the rapamycin kinase, mTOR

Additionally, due to the rapamycin kinase activities being implicated in cancer, rapamycin is also investigation for its use in the treatment of these malignancies. Additionally, rapamycin-coated stents, devices used to treat cardiovascular disease by narrowing the blood vessel, has been associated with reducing rates of recurrences of vessel narrowing. As a possible anti-aging drug, as the research in 2009 in mice indicated, the drug's inhibition of the rapamycin kinase is suspected to induce metabolic and stress responses that favour longevity. however, the process of which longevity occurs is still unknown. Other possibilities include retardation of the ageing process itself or preventing age-related diseases. 

Thanks for reading!

The Origins of Halloween

Ah, November 31^st. The day where an influx of the hushed whispers of little girls, rocking chairs and china dolls are on the big screen, Haribo sweets now have horror mix alongside cheap witch hats and matching brooms on the first aisle at supermarkets, and there are popular articles online for the best Halloween outfits – or, alternatively, the most offensive Halloween outfits. As a child living in London, trick or treating was a strange concept that involved reiterated warnings of not knocking on stranger’s doors and razors-in-apples horror stories. The sweets were always a good comfort eat on the day and extended to a few days afterwards. At university, Halloween involves horror club nights, slutty nurse outfits alongside the ever-popular Spartan, Greek and Roman ones as it only needs a cheap and easy white bed sheet, alcohol and someone miserably spewing in the street surrounded by laughing friends and bored-looking policemen. It also means it’s the perfect time to scoff sweets and re-watch Shaun of the Dead.   

Sometimes criticized as one of the many American traditions that have travelled around the pond to Britain, while modern Halloween is now concerned with costumes and sugar, it once evolved from the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain. Known as All Hallows Eve, it was north European festival that signalled the end of the light and warm half of the year, ushering in a cold and dark one. The Celts used the day to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, and also believed that this transition between the seasons was a bridge to the world of the dead. It was a pagan ritual and one of the greatest religious festivals of this ancient northern pagan year.

In the ushering in of winter, it was at the time considered a frightening and inconvenient season in the northlands prefacing months of darkness, cold and hunger. Perhaps think ‘winter is coming’ in this sense; it was a foreboding moment and so Halloween was regarded as the time when the spirits of darkness and fear would come, and when malevolent forces of nature would be let lose. The warriors, traders, sailors and other skilful people would return and there would be stories, celebrations, the settlement of disputes, and the taking of stock in this season. In medieval Ireland local kings were said to hold a feast at their royal halls, for a week before and after Samhain, for all these purposes. Festivals would occur and people would sing songs about spirits or dress up as them to mock the arriving season. It was commonly asserted that the feast was the pagan festival of the dead - in reality, it was to commemorate the dead.

During the Protestant reformation, it removed these rites from most of Britain, and left only a vague sense of Halloween as a time with certain associations, however, it survived in its actual form in Ireland as the Catholic feast of saints and souls. The idea of Halloween being translated from America comes from the celebration of Halloween as a great seasonal festival that travelled here through massive Irish emigration to America in the 19th century took it over there.

Halloween developed into a national festivity for Americans, retaining the custom of dressing up to mock powers of dark, cold and death, and a transforming one by which poor people went door to door to beg for food for a feast of their own. By the 1980s, the celebration came to Britain. Currently, traditional activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties, haunted houses, and jack-o-lanterns. So everyone, consume all the sugar you want, don’t worry too much about outfits unless that is your thing – fake blood and a bed sheet always does the trick for those on a budget – and have some fun!  

Sources

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/28/halloween-more-than-trick-or-treat-origins

http://www.history.com/topics/halloween

http://www.halloweenhistory.org/

The Ebola Outbreak

Hello! It's been a while since my last post due the business of my summer, however, I'm hoping to turn over a new leaf and achieve some semblance of the ability to manage my time better and start posting more frequently. I'm aiming for my posts to go back to considering the background of occurring events or developments on the news so to hopefully gather better understanding and knowledge on a variety of day-to-day topics. There has certainly been a foray of possibilities: from the actions of extremists, the Ebola epidemic to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the international community and UK news from the rise of Ukip, Tory defections and its attempts to knuckle down on immigration and tackle it (no doubt its surge towards the far-right is for the good of Britain and not for the hope of increasing popularity), to drug use laws. The news, usually remarking on death, disease, terrorism, protesters, failing governments, is never the most cheery of outlets, and certainly can't be taken in without some critique, however, it is still appealing for those interested and wanting to know and understand what is going on in our crazy world. And for my posts, there are endless possibilities in store.

Moving to one of the 'cheerless' topics, the Ebola outbreak is an important one to consider. My post today briefly describes it, the disease's symptoms and what you can do to help if you're feeling charitable. This has been a terrible outbreak and its consequences severe; with its fatality rate of 60-70%, it has been extremely dangerous for those in the countries of West Africa where the outbreak has occured. It is, of course, important to realize that this has started almost a year ago and, while I do not wish to be the cynic, the media seemed to have only picked up on this issue recently once the virus had spread to a few aid workers from outside of West Africa. Whether this is due to race, to aid awareness of the very unlikely possibility of a pandemic crisis, or because people getting infected with Ebola outside of West Africa make for good, panic headlines, I cannot be sure. Regardless, this is a serious, ongoing issue, and the effects have been devastating on those who have been made victims to the virus.

The reason that the current Ebola outbreak has been making headlines is due to the recent imported cases and two locally acquired cases in healthcare workers reported in the United States. Secondary infections of medical workers have also occurred in Spain and one case identified in Mali.  However, this outbreak has been going on for almost a year in West African countries that have had a reported case fatality rate of about 71 percent. It began in Guinea in December 2013 and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone, with a small outbreak additionally in Nigeria and one case occurred in Senegal. Now the largest epidemic in history, the World Health Organization reported that there have been a total of 12,008 suspected cases and 5,078 deaths, however, this is believed to understated figures. WHO have also warned that could be as many as 10,000 new cases every week by December 2014. Most recently, The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has now reported cases of Ebola; however, these cases are not related to the ongoing outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

At the moment, Ebola is considered a viral disease that has yet to have any licensed treatments or vaccines. When a person is infected with the Ebola virus, their developing symptoms will include: fever, headache, joint and muscle pain, sore throat and intense muscle weakness. These symptoms would be followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash and bleeding both internal and external which can be seen in the gums, eyes, nose and in stool. Patients tend to die from dehydration and multiple organ failure. These symptoms will occur suddenly between two and twenty-one days after becoming infected. It is absolutely necessary that any one experiencing these symptoms within twenty-one days of coming back from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone should stay at home and telephone 111 or 999 and explain your circumstances so necessary arrangements can take place to determine the cause of the illness.  This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash and bleeding - both internal and external - which can be seen in the gums, eyes, nose and in the stools.

When people begin to experience the symptoms, it is then that they become infectious to others. People become infected with the Ebola virus when they come into contact with the blood, body fluids or organs of an infected person. The majority of people that are infected are when giving care to other infected people, either by directly touching the patient’s body or by cleaning up body fluids (stools, urine or vomit) that carry infectious blood. Consequently, hospital workers, laboratory workers and family members are at greatest risk.

While there is currently no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola virus disease, there are potential new vaccines and drug therapies are being developed and tested. Patients at the moment infected with Ebola are placed in isolation where their blood oxygen levels and blood pressure are maintained at the right level and their body organs supported. ZMapp is an experimental treatment that can be tried; a product that is a combination of three different antibodies that bind to the protein of the Ebola virus. However, it has not yet been tested in humans for safety or effectiveness. 

One of the ways that you can help with the prevention of the spread of the deadly vis currently devastating the lives of people in West Africa, donate to the Ebola Crisis Appeal at Act!onaid whose teams are currently helping 271,000 people fight the disease which can pay for cleaning and disinfectant materials for families, buy personal protective equipment for volunteers and training the community on how to keep themselves safe and stop the spread of Ebola. Donations to help raise funds of these materials can also be made at Red Cross, International Medical Corps UK, Christian Aid and many more charities tackling the outbreak and contain it.  

Sources

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/index.html

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ebola-virus/pages/ebola-virus.aspx

Donations

http://www.actionaid.org.uk/ebola?label=DECEbola&gclid=CNeIr4SK08ECFQPMtAodrnEA3A

http://www.redcross.org.uk/ebolavirus?gclid=CMLv4fiK08ECFamWtAodq3wAVQ

http://www.internationalmedicalcorps.org.uk/about-us/emergencyresponse/ebola-crisis/?gclid=CPbV1pSL08ECFUPLtAod9h0ARw

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/ebola-crisis-appeal/ebola/cld.aspx?_$ja=cgid:9389993148|tsid:56895|cid:237270468|nw:g|crid:42453493068|rnd:8986167318381291581|dvc:c|adp:1s3|kw:guinea%20%2Bebola|mt:b|pm:&gclid=COzGnKyL08ECFVHMtAodFWEAtw