“The human virus bomb explodes. Military biohazard specialists have a way of describing this occurrence. They say that the victim has 'crashed and bled out.' Or more politely they say that the victim has 'gone down.' He becomes dizzy and utterly weak, and his spine goes limp and nerveless and he loses all sense of balance. The room is turning around and around. He is going into shock. He leans over, head on his knees, and brings up an incredible quantity of blood from his stomach and spills it onto the floor with a gasping groan.
"He loses consciousness and pitches forward onto the floor. The only sound is a choking in his throat as he continues to vomit while unconscious. Then come a sound like bedside being torn in half, which is the sound of his bowels opening and venting blood from sloughed his gut. The linings of his intestines have come off and are being expelled along with huge amount of blood.”
With Ebola in the spotlight as cases have popped up on American soil, learn about this sinister killer and four of its brethren you never want to catch:
Ebola
Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola Virus Disease, or simply Ebola, is the stuff of nightmares. This killer begins to affect a patient between two and 21 days after exposure (with an average incubation time around eight to 10 days). Early symptoms mimic those of the flu or cold virus and evolve to include fever, severe headache, muscle pain, weakness and fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and unexplained hemorrhaging.
The mortality rate for certain strains of Ebola is up to 90 percent, making it an efficient virus. This disease is spread through contact with blood and body secretions. There is currently no standard treatment for this disease, only supportive therapy and care. The disease has claimed more than 5,400 lives -- more than 2,200 in the current outbreak.
Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever
While Ebola is horrifying, the good news is that, until recently, outbreaks have been limited to remote villages in Africa. And it’s the only disease of its kind, right? Wrong. Marburg hemorrhagic fever, first discovered in 1967 after an outbreak in several labs in Germany and Yugoslavia, is a disease with nearly identical symptoms and outcome to the Ebola virus.
Thought to be caused by the African fruit bat, this disease is almost always found in Central Africa (with the original outbreak being the result of the disease being spread by monkeys that had been imported for polio research). This disease may initially mimic the symptoms of malaria, and will later cause bleeding in the mouth and rectum, as well as neurological problems. Like Ebola, there is no cure, and even more rare, with less than 1,000 cases reported to date. Mortality rates for this disease range from 23 percent to 90 percent.
Cancrum Oris
Cancrum oris, known more commonly as nona, is a gangrenous infection that attacks the facial tissues of those unlucky enough to contract it -- mostly young children under the age of six. This disease is especially prevalent in the most impoverished areas of Africa and has an extremely high mortality rate (about 80 percent). Those who are lucky enough to survive are left terribly disfigured.
This condition is far more common than Ebola or Marburg, affecting nearly 100,000 children every year. The antibodies in a victim turn on the soft tissues in the cheek, mouth and nose, progressing quickly to leave the sufferers disabled and unable to speak or eat normally.
In the 100 years since its eradication, it has made brief appearances in Europe and North America -- most notably in Nazi concentration camps. For those in the developed world, the good news is that this condition can be stopped with antibiotics at the first sign of a lesion. The bad news is, for those children who are most likely to contract the illness, those antibiotics are either unavailable or too expensive.
Brainerd Diarrhea
As you can guess from the name, this disease is a severe, acute form of diarrhea that gets its name from the Minnesota town where the first outbreak took place. Experts aren’t sure what causes the illness but believe that it may be caused by the consumption of contaminated water or unpasteurized milk. This disease hits victims hard - causing 10 - 20 episodes of explosive, watery diarrhea every day, with symptoms lasting for months - or even up to a year.
There is little relief for sufferers because this condition is extremely resistant to antimicrobial treatments, and drugs like Imodium only offer some relief in extremely high doses. Of the eight outbreaks of this disease since its discovery in 1983, six have occurred in the United States.
Leprosy
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease with a history thousands of years long. It is caused by slow-multiplying bacterium Mycobacterium leprae and manifests slowly (taking five to 20 years for symptoms to appear). Sufferers will begin to develop ulcers on the skin that grow and spread until the victim may appear to be rotting away, striking the face, hands, feet and genitals most severely. It’s not uncommon for victims to lose fingers, toes or even noses. The disfigurement caused by this disease is so severe that for centuries, the afflicted have been exiled to leper colonies.
Although this disease is not as highly infectious as Ebola or Marburg, it is transmitted through droplets that come from the nose and mouth during contact with untreated patients. While this disease can be treated with multidrug therapy (MDT), it can cause progressive and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes if not managed.