• Transmission of ebola
  
  
• Stages of the disease



• Symptoms of ebola
  

The Ebola virus is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs or semen of infected persons. It has similarities with HIV. The semen infected persons may have a "vacuum period" of up to 7 weeks. Handling ill or dead infected chimpanzees, may also be a way of transmission of the ebola virus. There is also a high rate of transmissoin when health care workers have frequently attending infected patients.

As ebola is 65 to 80 percent fatal, the infected usually do not survive. Once one is infected, one dies six to eighteen days later.

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Ebola is often characterized by the sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, limited kidney and liver functions, and both internal and external bleeding.

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