In Africa, doctors, health professionals and family members in close contact with an infected person would come down with the disease, he noted. There, relatives often handled the dead bodies of victims, touching open sores and becoming exposed. With improved infection control, Kimball says, transmission rates decreased. When it attacks, Ebola is particularly virulent, killing quickly and giving the body little time to launch an effective immune response. Infected individuals suffer severe pain, high fever and extensive internal bleeding.
All doctors can do is provide fluids to restore the lost blood.
While the virus periodically strikes humans, scientists do not know where in nature it resides between outbreaks. It is only a matter of time before the Ebola virus reaches North America, whether this time or the next. What Happens When Ebola Strikes Experts say that after an abrupt onset of the headache and muscle aches, those who contract Ebola will within a few hours or a few days suffer from severe diarrhea and abdominal pain. Tom Kerkering, professor of medicine at the Medical College of Virginia, says that eventually the virus causes the person to hemorrhage because the body loses its blood clotting agents, called platelets. The virus also makes the cells in the body more apt to burst open and release their fluids.