Ebola Outbreak: Need for your prayers

"It's a serious outbreak," says US Center for Disease Control

I don't know about you, but there is nothing as scary to me as the Ebola virus. Perhaps it was the long discussions in biology class about what it does to the human, or the fact that no cure exists and between 50-90% of those who contract it die. Then there is also the gruesome hemorrhaging that's common, and the insane easy of transmission.

Well, its broken out again in the Congo, and it's bad. Keep this in your prayers, remembering to pray for both the victims and the brave medical volunteers who are trying to control the outbreak. In previous outbreaks, caretakers and those involved in burying victims were particularly susceptible.........

Congo's Ebola Outbreak Could Be Worst in Years
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page A19

International medical personnel and supplies are being airlifted to a remote region of central Congo to combat what threatens to become the world's most serious outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in years.

Only nine cases of the disease have been confirmed by laboratory tests. But medical authorities suspect the virus has killed 168 people and sickened 375 others across a heavily forested region where villages are linked only by deeply rutted dirt roads. Health officials said it is possible that new cases will continue to emerge over the coming months.

Diary from DR Congo's Ebola frontline
Zoe Young of the medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), shares her diary from the Democratic Republic of Congo where she is dealing with an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. Read her experiences here

Zoe is a water and sanitation specialist with MSF