How Many People Have Died Of Ebola ?
Hemorrhagic fever is caused by the Ebola virus, which does not have any particular treatment at present. The fatality rate of this disease is as high as 90 percent and patients mostly die due to dehydration, massive bleeding and sometimes shock.
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The death toll due to Ebola is found to be more in Africa such as the outbreak in Uganda in September 2000 where close to 160 people died.
Since this a contagious disease, health care workers are also affected badly. There was an instance where one doctor died along with thirteen others including twelve nurses and an ambulance driver.
There was another case of outbreak of Ebola in 2001 where five members of a family died due to this disease. There were also reports of 6 deaths from the neighboring Republic of Congo. However, these deaths could have been avoided because scientists believe that infected chimpanzees caused the disease when chimpanzee meat was consumed. Hence, healthcare professionals are trying to educate people not to eat chimpanzee meat in countries where it considered to be a delicacy.
During August 2007, there were cases of 103, who were infected by a suspected hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Again in November 2007, Ministry of Health of Uganda confirmed an outbreak of Ebola. As per official declaration, the epidemic ended in February 2008 with 37 cases of death reported.
The most recent outbreak was reported on 29 December, 2008, in the Western Kasai province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there were 11 deaths reported. Hence, it is not wrong to say that till an effective treatment is found for this dreaded disease, death tolls will not decrease.
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