Ebola vs. The World

In my STEAM course called Disease, we finished our third and final unit called “World”. In this unit, we focused on the wide spread of diseases. We mainly studied the different classifications of diseases such as a pandemic, endemic, hyperendemic, epidemic, and sporadic.We studied how we can keep the public safe from something like an epidemic. In addition, we looked how an epidemic can affect the world. For this final Action Project, we were supposed to choose a disease of our interest. We were then instructed to study an outbreak of the disease from the past. I chose Ebola in the Dominican Republic. I chose this because I thought this was an expected place due to its growth of tourist. We then created a newspaper article that informs the readers about the outbreak. The new article explains how the outbreak was controlled and what we can do to avoid the outbreak. Overall this AP was really fun! I had a good time researching, doing the project, and most importantly learning something. I think the hardest thing for me during the project was having enough time to finish my research. We only had about three days to conduct the research and complete the AP. I was able to just push through everything and not get distracted by other things. I hope you enjoy!


In 2014, there was a Chikungunya outbreak, better known as Ebola. The outbreak started in the Dominican Republic. This island is one of the most common tourist landings in the Caribbean. According to The Guardian, there were an estimated 4.7 million tourists in 2013. Ebola started off just as an outbreak but later on turned into an epidemic. Some of the symptoms of Ebola may consist of pain in the abdomen, chest, joint, chills, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting blood. The epidemic caused people to get sick and as a result caused a few deaths. According to the CDC, the University of Sierra Leone has started a trial vaccine. S.T.R.I.V.E stands for the Sierra Leone Trial and it is the introduction of the possible vaccine against Ebola. Officials were able to locate exactly where the Ebola exposure was located in West Africa. Due to the certain countries that were being infected, they were able to place a ban countries like Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

Fodey, Newspaper, (2017).     
CDC, Map, (2015)

In the medical field, we use something called the R0. This stands for the r, naught which is the basic reproduction number. R0 < 1 means the infection will die out in the long run. But if the is R0 > 1 the infection will be able to spread in a population. Ebola’s R0 is 1.5-2.5. This means for every person that has the disease 1.5-2.5 people are expected to get the disease.

Some of the risk factors to take into consideration are being in close contact anyone, (especially anyone who is showing early symptoms) and being on an airplane with people coming from places where Ebola is present. I think if we stick to the suggested ways to keep us uninfected, we will not have another outbreak.

Here is a list of things to avoid a future outbreak of Ebola
  1. Avoid countries/areas of known outbreaks 
  2. Avoid bush meat 
  3. Avoid contact with infected people


Works Cited

  • "Dominican Republic." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3 Feb. 2017. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.
  • "Ebola virus and Marburg virus Prevention." Mayo Clinic. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.
  • "Epidemiologic Risk Factors to Consider when Evaluating a Person for Exposure to Ebola Virus." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Aug. 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.
  • “Med.” Arundhati Parmar " MedCity News. N.p., 09 Jan. 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. Lakhani, Nina. "Chikungunya: Ebola pushes South American epidemic out of the spotlight." 
  • The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

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