just a sedan, it's a Subaru.

Ebola is a horrific infection that causes a horrible messy death, but technically…

it's not the infection that kills you. It's you that kills you.

Hey DNewsers, Trace here. Ebola is ravaging West Africa, with over 1,400 dead and almost

3,000 infected.[a][b] The outbreak is real, and horrible. And though it is a terrible

infection, it's not the virus, it's your immune system that's doing the killing due to a cytokine[c]

storm. But before we get ahead of ourselves, lemme explain how we got here.

Ebola or EVD was first identified in 1972[d]. Two simultaneous outbreaks occurred in the

Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those two were likely infected by fruit bats,

and the virus was named for the Ebola river, which runs by the town in DRC where the virus

was found. Today, the outbreak is happening in West Africa, 2,500 miles from the DRC,

probably taken there by fruit bats. [e]

When a REGULAR virus infects you, cytokines are created in response to send signals to

the immune system. A cytokine is a protein produced by your body to send signals between

cells. There are many different kinds of cytokines and they're used by a bunch of your systems

-- including the immune system. The system then sends out dendritic cells, which eat

the infection, learn about it and then tell the immune system to produce antibodies, which

stop the brothers of that virus from further infecting the body. When ebola infects your

body, it attacks those immune systems that launch the dendritic cells first. Without

that dendritic instruction, the antibodies don't have any blueprints to use to combat

the virus. Thus, ebola replicates unabashedly, exploding cells and running wild, and eventually

immune system throws everything it has to try and stop it. That's the cytokine storm!

The cytokine storm is like your body's version of DefCon 1… all your body's defenses come

shooting into your bloodstream. There are antibodies and white blood cells flying everywhere

trying to destroy the infestation, but like Total Thermonuclear War from WarGames: it

does harm the enemy virus, but neither side wins.

Virologist Gaya Amarasinghe explained the whole thing to NPR and to put it simply, due

to the cytokine storm, the walls of your blood vessels become more permeable; thus blood

and plasma leaks into surrounding tissue, and sometimes out of the eyes, ears, and nose[f],

taking ebola with it. In response to it's own onslaught, your body releases nitric oxide

t[g]o try and regulate your blood pressure, but that nitric oxide damages the blood vessels

even more, thinning your blood and dropping your pressure further. This causes something

like septic shock, -- or shock due to low blood pressure.

So YES, ebola was killing your cells anyway and nothing was going to reign it in. But

the virologist put it this way, "The immune system is doing way more damage than good."

As you probably know, ebola is spread by infected bodily fluids. That includes blood, plasma,

stool, and urine… but also spit that might fly during conversation, sweat, and fluids

that leaks out of the body after death. The World Health Organization[h] says it's almost

always Human-to-Human (though it CAN be from infected meat) and it takes between 48 hours

and three weeks before a newly-infected person shows symptoms. They also say there are no

vaccines and no proven treatments. Though, it's important to note that infection isn't

a death sentence, because 47 percent of ebola carriers survive!

How does this make you feel about your immune system? Also, do you like WarGames? Because

that movie was awesome. We've got a comment section, so USE IT! For

more information on ebola cures, check out Carin's video, and come say hello to me on

Twitter, I'm Trace Dominguez. Thanks for watching DNews. And if you enjoyed it, please subscribe.