Name two similarities between Ebola and Marburg infections.

Question

Accepted Answer

Hi, everybody. Let's look at the next problem. It says the following are all known causes of hemorrhagic fever except a Ebola virus. B Marburg virus, C Dengue virus or D Zika virus. So let's recall what a hemorrhagic fever is. You got that word hemorrhage in there. So this one's fairly easy to remember that it would be a condition that's accompanied by or causes bleeding. So let's look at our viruses here and they all happen to be viruses. And we're looking for the one that is not a cause of hemorrhagic fever. Well, choice, a Ebola virus is probably the easiest one to eliminate Ebola is pretty infamous. We would say um for being a cause of hemorrhagic fever, it is uh very fatal in about 50% of cases of people that haven't been vaccinated. It's a virus that has both human to human transmission by uh bodily fluids, but it also has human to animal transmission. So even if a human um epidemic is over, the animals in the area can be a reservoir for the Ebola virus. There is a newly developed vaccine developed in 2019. Uh So if they've started to be some vaccine campaigns in areas where Ebola is found. Um but it is not very widespread yet, but it's definitely a hemorrhagic fever very causes very severe bleeding. So we can rule that out. Choice. B Marburg virus is less well known than Ebola but it's very similar than Ebola with an even higher fatality rate during outbreaks. About 88%. Yeah. And as you might expect being uh even less common than Ebola, there's no vaccine developed as of yet. And neither Marburg nor Ebola really have any treatments other than supportive treatment trying to limit um fluid loss. Although Ebola has, there's a few antibody technique treatments that have shown a little bit of promise. And of course, um now there's this vaccine. So choice b also a hemorrhagic fever. Now try C Dengue virus is a little bit trickier because dengue um in its most common form is not hemorrhagic causes fever, body aches, abdominal pain and is not hemorrhagic. However, Dengue also has a more serious hemorrhagic form, uh slightly less common, but it does have that effect of inducing bleeding. And this is the more dangerous and more likely to be fatal form of the virus. It is mosquito transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. So since it does have a hemorrhagic form, even though it's not hemorrhagic all the time, we would rule that out. And then finally choice D Zika virus. Well, by process of elimination, this is our answer and indeed Zika is not hemorrhagic. It has symptoms similar to the more common form of dengue virus. So the fever, abdominal pain and has a rash. Um but it's often completely asymptomatic and generally very mild. The big issue with zika, it wasn't of concern in the past. But the reason why it's now considered a public health threat is that it is now known that serious birth defects can result from infection during pregnancy. So, if the virus is transmitted to the fetus, the result could be serious birth defects. Um the most common of which or the most well known of which is microcephaly. So even though in the majority of people that trans uh get this virus, they have no symptoms or just very mild symptoms, the very serious consequences to the fetus. If a pregnant woman acquires this virus uh makes this a public health uh threat. It's also mosquito transmitted also by our friend, the Aedes aegypti mosquito and that is friend in definitely a very ironic sense, but Zika is not a hemorrhagic fever. So it's the answer to our question here since we're looking for the one that is not a cause of hemorrhagic fever. So that answer is choice D Zika virus. See you in the next video.

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Name two similarities between Ebola and Marburg infections.

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