Infectious Disease: Outbreak and Control Strategies

  A disease is an abnormal illness that negatively impacts the function of living organisms. The disease is commonly taken as a medical condition and is mostly associated with particular symptoms and certain signs and differs from physical injury in nature. Infectious disease is caused by infective microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi, on the other side.  Infectious diseases can be transferred directly or indirectly from organism to organism.  by destroying cells, or releasing chemicals that can interrupt ordinary cell function called toxins, the pathogen can cause illness.

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 An outbreak of disease X, that has been quietly spreading in a small town in Victoria since December 2015. The disease has cholera-like symptoms and has the biology of Ebola. As an expert of disease control, I investigated the outbreak and developed a few control strategies to prevent further infections. Social, ethical and economic impacts have been taking into consideration in the information of the strategy. The main purpose of this task is to propose strategies to support the control of disease X.

Strategies:

The strategies to control the spread of disease X is:

i)                    by isolating those individuals suffering and to contain the spread of disease.

ii)                 Education of disease management.

iii)               To prevent any further cases.

iv)                Look at immunisation strategies.

Infectious disease is an illness caused by the transmission of agents called pathogens. The disease creates an organism’s malfunction that makes it unable to conduct its usual function. Certain kinds of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, fungal parasites are transferred from a host of sources to another host or source by a variety of ways such as air and dust, direct and indirect contact or by wild animals. Viruses are non-living microscopic pathogens, meaning that without a host cell they cannot reproduce. A virus attaches to a particular cell and injects its genetic material that causes cell to produce more viruses which will then trigger the death of the host cell. This will result in impairment of the tissue, failure of the organs and death. During their trip to Africa, a patient had a contacted disease X with wild animals and the other patients caused the virus through contact with this patient. Later, the victim developed an illness characterized by fever, black stools, and vomiting. Neighbouring towns’ people have conjointly begun to indicate similar illness signs and symptoms and patients have rapidly died. The infected rate is increasing, and therefore the mortality is high. The primary symptoms are alike cholera, a bacterial infectious disease.  However, treatments for Cholera were not overly successful as the virus’s biology is the same as Ebola, an infectious disease caused by the virus belongs to the family Filoviridae genus Ebolavirus.

The scenario of the SHE task shows that the unknown disease occurrence had matching affects as the Ebola Virus Disease family. With Ebola, people are not transmittable until they are developed symptoms. Ebola can be transmitted by contact with the blood or bodily fluids from an infected person (SA Health, 2018).

Strategies in detail to control Disease X:

Strategies thoroughly to control Disease X is to isolate those that are infected with the disease X from the community. Isolating implies finding anyone who’s exposed to a disease x. We ask the infected patient or their relatives who have been contacted since they began their symptoms. These contacts are then identified and observe for signs of disease for maximal of 21 days to visualize if they get sick. If a contact starts showing signs and symptoms of Disease X, it is screened and immediately isolated and care given instantly and the cycle starts again. The process will be repeated until there no new patient is present. Identified new infectious diseases cases quickly so they can be isolated as soon as they show symptoms, preventing spread to others. Strategy (ii) is to educate the individuals about how it’s spread and not to come in contact with infected animals. Hand hygiene is taken into account one of the most important infection control measures for reducing the spread of infection. Where appropriate, educate schools and other people incorporate the teaching of soap and hand hygiene routines into the program and daily schools’ activities and additionally give applicable personal protective equipment such as gloves and masks for staff members to use when dealing with blood or body fluids or substances. (iii) for further prevention of the cases, the best way to avoid disease X is to make sure everyone is aware and stay away from the area where the virus is common, avoid infected people particularly their bodily fluids or with wild animals since these animals spread the disease X to people. (iv) is to look at immunisation strategies. Researchers strive to understand how vaccines trigger immune response that protect against infections and develop new vaccines for disease X. Developing a vaccine that can target all the species that cause disease in humans would be ideal. Identifying the disease X species and implementing drug trials and vaccination as soon as possible. However, no vaccines are 100% effective, but the impact of the disease is less severe

SHE concepts link:

Ebola outbreak relates to social implication because it impacts the poorest part of the countries. Disease X has also impacted on the poor area near the wildlife, where the patients were in contact with a wild animal. The emotional costs to individual such as depression and anxiety and emotional disorders. The economic impacted of the disease X includes loss of gross domestic output, threat to food security, household income has fallen and the cost of explementary coast of treatment. Some patients were ethically declined to be treated and supported for the Ebola disease. However, health professionals provide a duty of care to the infected patients by taking notes of personal risks from the infections.

Overall, I noticed that the outbreak of disease X is different from Ebola Virus Disease, they considerably shared many symptoms along with similarity in biology. Ebola virus disease and Disease X are both considered to cause rapid deaths because the bacteria spread through the body increasing in many ways and causing deaths.

To Justify my findings on the strategies of the outbreak of Disease X, the process of Science as a Human endeavour has been positively addressed and linked to the Ebola Virus disease. I analyse technique from the influence SHE concepts which assist me expand broader by relating them to both disease in comparison.  

Bibliography and Referencing:

• Tara, W 1999, Brief General History of Ebola, viewed 5 August 2019, <https://virus.stanford.edu/filo/history.html>.

• Ghayourmanesh, S, PhD & Hawley, HB, MD 2019, ‘Ebola virus’, Magill’s Medical Guide (Online Edition), viewed 31 July 2019, <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tol&AN=86194072>.)

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2019, Years of Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, viewed 1 August 2019, <https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/history/chronology.html.

• Thomas, S, Gwendolyn L, G & Ian H, K 2015, Ethical considerations in the management of Ebola virus disease, viewed 5 August 2019, <https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/203/4/ethical-considerations-management-ebola-virus-disease>

• .Bruce Y., L 2018, Disease X Is What May Become The Biggest Infectious Threat To Our World, viewed 5 August 2019, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2018/03/10/disease-x-is-what-may-become-the-biggest-infectious-threat-to-our-world/#196592742cd7>.

• MERCY CORPS 2019, Chapter 4: How does Ebola affect the economy?, viewed 5 August 2019, <https://www.mercycorps.org/ebola-outbreaks-africa-guide/chapter-4>.

•  Chapter 10: Controlling the spread of infectious diseases 2016, Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law, PDF, viewed 5 August 2019, <https://www.who.int/healthsystems/topics/health-law/chapter10.pdf>.