Search - Frontline: Outbreak on DVD

Gloria B. (glowbird) from SPOKANE, WA
Reviewed on 8/14/2018...

The subtitle is Why Wasn't the Ebola Outbreak Stopped Before it Was Too Late? The film documents how the virus spread rapidly over west Africa, and how international attention wasn't paid until one American was hospitalized with the virus in TX. As long as the virus stayed in the remote villages, little response was given. At the time Doctors Without Borders were pleading for aid as the dead mounted and they couldn't handle them all in their small clinics in remote areas where the sick and the dead remained in the same tents. When the virus spread to a metropolitan area, it was finally declared a “public health emergency of international concern” by the WHO.

Ebola causes viral haemorrhagic fever, and is one of the bleeding diseases, along with Marburg and Lassa viruses. These viruses are usually transmitted by direct contact with blood or other body secretions rather than being airborne. The filmmakers showed that the African's burial rituals spread the virus, and the death of one famous shaman's funeral exponentially dispersed the virus. The Zaire strain of Ebola virus outbreak in Africa had a mortality rate of 50-90%. The outbreak is still not over: "As of 8 August 2018, the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has reported 44 EVD cases, of which 17 have been confirmed. . . Among the 44 cases, 37 cases had a fatal outcome, of which 10 have been confirmed for Ebola virus and 27 remain probable. All samples tested positive for Zaire ebolavirus species." ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR)

I watched this because I'm interested in how pandemic outbreaks are spread and handled. Infected areas are isolated so the virus can burn itself out. Obviously all people within the quarantined areas are at risk. It was a good documentary.

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