October 23-29, 2014 Current Events Lesson Plan
Current Event: First Ebola Patient in New York City
Craig Spencer, an emergency-room physician who recently returned to the United States after caring for Ebola patients in Africa, became the first person to test positive for the disease in New York City. He is the fourth person diagnosed with Ebola hemorrhagic fever in the United States, and the first outside Texas. Spencer had been volunteering with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, one of the African countries hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak.The current outbreak, largely concentrated in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, has sickened more than 10,000 people and resulted in the deaths of at least 5,000 people. Spencer and three other people who had been in close contact with him have been placed under quarantine. However, health officials stressed that other New Yorkers have only an extremely slim chance of contracting the disease.
Objective:
Ebola virus is a virus that has caused several outbreaks of deadly disease in Africa. Its name comes from the Ebola River in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The first known outbreak of the disease occurred in 1976 and killed hundreds of people. In human beings and monkeys, the virus causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever, an illness characterized by fever, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and massive internal bleeding. The virus is spread by contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person, body tissue, or unsterilized needles or other equipment. Up to 80 to 90 percent of all people who become infected die. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore Ebola and other diseases.
Words to know:
- Africa
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Disease
- Doctors Without Borders
- Ebola virus
- Guinea
- Liberia
- Medicine
- New York City
- Quarantine
- Sierra Leone
- Virus
Discussion Topics:
1. Ask your students to name other diseases caused by viruses. (Students might say AIDS, chickenpox, influenza, measles, mumps, rabies, smallpox, and yellow fever.)
2. Ask your students to debate, “Anybody who has been in close contact with someone who has Ebola should be placed under a mandatory quarantine.”
3. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to view or add to the Advances in Medicine timeline. (Students may wish to use the “History” section of World Book’s “Medicine” article for help.)