IT’S a horrible thought that there’s a disease out there so powerful, so virulent, so unstoppable that modern medicine is yet to make a dent in its deadly progress.

The latest outbreak of Ebola virus will likely take more than 1000 victims and it has scientists like the Australian National University’s infectious disease specialist Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake and CSIRO virologist Dr Glenn Marsh scrambling to unravel its secrets.

Since January Africa has faced its largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak, with about 1711 people infected.

The situation is critical, with the latest strain, called Zaire, the fifth and deadliest.

First appearing in the Sudan and Congo in 1976, Ebola is a ghastly thing. Few of those infected have survived.

Early symptoms are flu-like, with a sore throat, fever and aching muscles.

It takes from two to 21 days to become sick and, as it goes, pain worsens in the lower back, a rash develops on the upper body and mouth and eyes become red.

The virus attacks clotting mechanisms which can prompt bleeding from all orifices.

Senanayake says organs soon start to shut down, particularly the liver and kidneys.

``The virus is clever. It can bypass the body’s immune system and is particularly aggressive,’’ he says.

EBOLA: Battle to contain outbreak intensifies

The World Health Organisation lists it as killing about 90 per cent of those infected but Senanayake and Marsh believe the true figure is nearer 60 per cent which is still incredibly high.

To put it into context, Senanayake says meningococcal has a mortality rate of 5 to 10 per cent and the Spanish flu which killed 100 million in 1918 had a rate of 2.5 per cent.

``A 60 per cent mortality rate is enormous,’’ he says. ``It’s a horrible way to die and it’s a horrible way to watch someone die.’’

This is yet another virus which likely stemmed from bats. It also has jumped to humans from monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas.

In 1996 in Gabon 19 people died after cooking and eating a dead chimpanzee they had found.

Human to human transmission is rapid and via blood, urine, faeces, vomit, semen and possibly sweat.

Friends and relatives in poor African countries have been hard hit as they tend victims without the necessary biosecurity protection. Others have been infected as they follow traditions in which mourners touch the body of those about to be buried.

Although it is possible for ebola to get to Australia by accident because of air travel, scientists believe the nation’s highly sophisticated medical infrastructure would see it contained.

``The thought of even a single case in Australia is not a pleasant one,’’ says Senanayake, who notes the key control is to isolate victims.

Nevertheless, it might worry people a little to know that ebola is already here, courtesy of some that was imported nine months ago to the high security Australian Animal Health and Research Centre in Geelong.

It is one of a handful of the world’s frontline laboratories working on a medical response.

Drugs and vaccines are being developed and Marsh says trials will start in the US on a vaccine, possibly as early as next month.

Even in the face of such an horrific disease, vaccine development faces the usual lengthy clinical trials and financial hurdles.

Human trials have to be conducted to show it does not have side effects and this has put scientists in an ethical dilemma.

Should tests be conducted in western countries where the work is under way or in third-world Africa where the disease has struck?

Accusations have been made about why two infected US health workers, Nancy Writebol and Kent Brantly, were given the experimental ZMapp drug while dying Africans were not.

Details are hazy but the US pair apparently accepted personal responsibility to use the drug which is a world away from material going onto the market internationally.

Scientists fear being seen to be using poor Africans as guinea pigs.

Moreover, if vaccine tests hit problems like dangerous side effects or do not provide 100 per cent protection, it’s feared this might inhibit introduction of the final product in poorly educated and fear-ridden communities.

Marsh says that, because of costs, there is little chance entire African nations will be vaccinated. More likely those in some sort of quarantine area around outbreaks will be treated.

A medieval-type disease outbreak like ebola was also probably guaranteed to bring some eccentric western responses but reactions have ranged from sheer stupidity to heartless and scary.

Internet-based homeopathic treatments are being offered based on products including coffee, fermented soy, vitamin C and rattlesnake, yellow viper and bushmaster snake venoms.

``Hands on treatment with infected body fluid is a recipe for disaster in terms of transmissions,’’ says Senanayake. ``We’ve just got to keep on promoting the message about ebola so people know what to do and not what to do.’’

The infection of the two US workers and their trip home for treatment brought out the worst in some. Billionaire developer Donald Trump tweeted that they should not be allowed back into the US.

Stories are out there of terror groups building a dirty bomb containing the flesh-eating virus which will be exploded in the UK.

Meantime, scientists like Senanayake and Marsh quietly work on. Marsh says there has been no pattern to outbreaks of the virus that under a microscope appears in the teasing shape of a question mark.

Australian bats have the potential to carry ebola and his lab is also looking at why these creatures carry so many pathogenic viruses.

Along the way Marsh and Senanayake will probably just happen to save several thousand lives.

brian.williams@news.com.au

Fast facts about ebola

* Ebola virus outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90 per cent

* Outbreaks occur primarily in Central and West Africa

* The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads via human-to-human transmission

* Fruit bats are considered the natural host

* No specific treatment or vaccine is available

* Ebola first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in Nzara, Sudan, and Yambuku, Congo with the latter in a village near the Ebola River

Source: World Health Organisation