The world of Tzu Chi June 2020 (Vol.123)

08 2020 • 06 eature Ebola virus, a cotton factory worker from Sudan, began to exhibit symptoms of a fever, headaches and diarrhoea. He succumbed to the disease ten days later. Over the next few months, the first Ebola outbreak in history occurred in Sudan and Zaire (now known as the Republic of Congo). Despite extensive research on the virus, efforts to track down its original host were unfruitful. The virus is mainly transmitted through contact with the blood and other bodily fluids of its carriers, with an average fatality rate of approximately 50 percent. In November 2002, the first cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), caused by the SARS-CoV virus, were detected in the Guangdong province of China. The palm civet was identified as a potential carrier or intermediary host, exposing humans who handled the animal to the virus. However, response to the contagion was delayed as doctors initially diagnosed the then-unknown zoonotic disease as atypical pneumonia. The virus travelled fast, far and wide from China to Hong Kong, Taiwan and beyond, aided by growing global interconnectivity and increasingly accessible air travel. By September 2003, the virus had spread to 29 countries and regions, resulting in 8,096 infections and 774 deaths worldwide. Ten years on, an even more lethal strain of virus emerged. In 2012, a Saudi Arabian man fell ill a week after applying medication on the nose of several camels. Researchers A painting by Flemish painter Michiel Sweerts depicting the plague sweeping across Athens in ancient Greece. [Image sourced from Wellcome Images]