Nursing Student Class Projects (Formerly MSN)
Academic Term
Summer 2015
Document Type
Project
Course Number
NURS 5330
Course Name
Advanced Pathophysiology
Professor’s Name
John D. Chovan, James R. Cacchillo
Keywords
Viruses, Public Health, Case Studies
Subject Categories
Medical Pathology | Medicine and Health Sciences | Nursing | Virus Diseases
Abstract
The Ebola virus is a member of the filoviridae family. Five distinctive species of ebolavirus have been identified, four of which are known to cause disease in humans (Martines, Ng, Greer, Rollin, and Zaki, 2014). The specific species known to cause disease in humans are Zaire, Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Bundibugyo (Bray & Chertow, 2014). Bah et al. (2015) report that the Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) was the cause of the most recent West African outbreak and carries the highest human mortality rate among the five known species, with up to 90% of cases being fatal. Ebola is a filamentous, enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA virus (Martines, et al., 2014). According to Jarrett (2014), just ten Ebola microbes are needed to successfully transmit the virus from human to human, proving it to be highly capable of infectivity. “Outbreaks typically originate with introduction of the virus into humans from a wild animal reservoir, with subsequent human-to-human transmission, often fueled by nosocomial amplification in resource-poor settings” (Bah, et al., 2015, p. 40).
Recommended Citation
Wasson, Andrew T., "Exploring the Pathophysiological Concepts of Ebola Virus" (2015). Nursing Student Class Projects (Formerly MSN). 65.
https://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/stu_msn/65
Included in
Medical Pathology Commons, Nursing Commons, Virus Diseases Commons