• Question: How do you cure an infectious disease, like ebola?

    Asked by Dauntless to Joe, Jos, Kate, Lisa, Pierre on 17 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Askingandytopiercethehorizon.
    • Photo: Kate Dobson

      Kate Dobson answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Generally, the best way to cure infectious diseases is to prevent people from catching them, or to treat the symptoms of the disease. It depends on how serious the effects are as to which method we try to develop. For some diseases like Measles we have developed vaccinations that allow your body to develop the anti-bodies to prevent you getting sick. This is what they are trying to do with Ebola.

    • Photo: Lisa Simmons

      Lisa Simmons answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      The first stage of curing infectious diseases is containment, and prevention. With ebola, there was a lot of work that needed to be done, educating people on how to deal with the disease, and stop it spreading.
      Pharmaceutical companies are now working very hard on trying to prevent an vaccine for Ebola.

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