Ebola: Africa's Ecological Guerrilla Fighter

Guerrilla warfare usually refers to the strategy of fighting by groups of irregular troops within areas occupied by the enemy, using tactics such as surprise, ambush, and deception (Smith 1). A small group of commandos will remain in hiding until the correct moment to raid the enemy, performing a quick strike, and then retreating to the underbrush where they are concealed from view. This action is repeated as long as it is necessary, until a significant amount of damage has been done. Guerrilla warfare has been a very successful attack design for a wide array of people and organisms, including a virus that has recently become one of the most feared diseases among the United States population. The Ebola virus’ has utilized this tactic, which is the main reason it has been so efficient in human lethality and individual survival.

Ebola is a zoonotic pathogen; it is able to cross from an animal host hideaway into a human, spreading uncontrollably at times and leading to death. This type of virus enables Ebola to have a very complicated and problematic advantage: the ability to hide. It is not hiding consciously of course, but in a place it is able to survive and reproduce. This area of hiding is primarily an organism, called a reservoir host, which carries the pathogen but has little to no suffering or illness. Ebola is able to lurk in an ecosystem where there is much diversity and the environment remains relatively undisturbed. But once an ecological disturbance has occurred, Ebola emerges from depths of the jungle. It makes a quick strike, infecting then killing numerous people and then disappearing again into the unknown. This happens continuously, using a form of guerrilla warfare, teeming with surprise attacks to take human and animal lives before retreating to its reservoir host.

Because of Ebola’s method of irregular and ambush infections, it has proven difficult to study the virus. So far no proven treatment or cure has been identified, which has created a very high mortality rate for the disease. Ebola is transmitted through bodily fluids, so infection can spread rapidly as a sudden surge of sickness; people will not know something is contaminated until it is too late. As of now, the identity of Ebola’s reservoir host remains unknown, although some recent evidence has pointed to a type of fruit bat located in the caves of West Africa. As long as scientists cannot pinpoint the exact host, Ebola will continue to inflict its terror on humans in West Africa and the rest of the world.

Currently there are at least five known strains of the ebolavirus. Four are scattered across sub-Saharan Africa and one seems to be endemic to the Philippines and has traveled to the United States on occasion. These different forms have various symptoms, and each new virus discovered seems to be more lethal, as it increases its death rate progressively. This means that the Ebola has been evolving and continues to evolve, making genetic changes that favors its survival and increases its destructiveness. This fact creates an eerie sense that Ebola is not gone for good; its reappearance is inevitable. It is scary to think that the virus is becoming worse, and eventually an outbreak will occur where it spreads even faster and causes more casualties. Maybe the next occasion Ebola happens to emerge from its quiet hideaway, it will not be contained in just Africa and will spread to other countries more than it has previously. With no known remedy, this could lead to the worst outbreak the world has seen in years.

 

References:                                                                                                                                

Quammen, David, and David Quammen. Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus. N.p.:      n.p., n.d. Print

Smith, Peter. "Guerrilla Warfare." TheFreeDictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.