Edward K. Chapnick - Ebola Myths & Facts For Dummies

Edward Chapnick, MD, is Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Vice Chairman of Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. His practice includes the treatment of patients with a wide range of problems in the specialty of infectious diseases, including HIV, antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, and travel medicine.

He received his MD degree from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, and completed his training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Maimonides Medical Center. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. His activities also include teaching, and he is a professor of clinical medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. Dr. Chapnick has numerous publications in the peer-reviewed medical literature and is actively engaged in clinical research.

This book is dedicated to the patients and families who have experienced the devastation of the Ebola epidemic, and to the heroic healthcare workers who are risking their lives to end this scourge.

I want to express thanks to the team at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., for having asked me to participate in this important and exciting project. The core team that I have been working with to make this book come to life includes Sarah Sypniewski, contributor, Chad Sievers, project editor, and Tracy Boggier, senior acquisitions editor. You have helped keep me going at every step along the way. Sarah, it has been an honor and a pleasure to work with and to learn from you during the process of writing this book. In addition, I want to thank Kathy Nebenhaus at Wiley, without whose invitation I would not have had the opportunity to engage in this project.

Finally, a special thank you to my parents, Seymour and the late Laura Chapnick, for their lifelong support and encouragement of my education and personal and professional development.

Publishers Acknowledgments

Acquisitions Editor: Tracy Boggier

Project Editor: Chad R. Sievers

Copy Editor: Chad R. Sievers

Contributor: Sarah Sypniewski

Art Coordinator: Alicia B. South

Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond

Cover Photos: iStock.com/wildpixel

Chapter 1

In This Chapter

Getting an overview of Ebola

Recognizing the symptoms

Knowing how to protect yourself

Understanding how Ebola is diagnosed and treated

Forecasting the future

This chapter serves as your road map to everything Ebola related. Some of the details about Ebola can be a little confusing or upsetting, but I try to make it as easy as possible to understand whats happening.

Researchers and scientists are still discovering so much about Ebola (after all, the virus isnt even 50 years old), but I can promise you that I share with you what is known. Keep in mind that things are changing rapidly because of the current active outbreak. This chapter gives you the basics of Ebola and serves as your jumping-off point.

You may have heard of the 5 Ws of journalism the who, what, when, where, and why of the story. The H of how usually gets thrown in there, too. The concept is meant to make sure journalists get all the important stuff into a news piece without leaving their audience hanging. These sections answer these questions to make sure that you have all the basic information before diving into all of the many details about Ebola.