Participants listen to a lecture on the Ebola virus during an awareness campaign launched by the Zamzam charitable organization in Jeddah on Wednesday.

A leading charitable group organized an awareness campaign on the Ebola virus in cooperation with the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Jeddah on Wednesday.

The Zamzam charitable organization launched the campaign in a bid to spread preventive awareness on the deadly virus, which has killed 1,145 people in West Africa, under the slogan “transcend behavior.”

The Ebola virus has a 90-percent fatality rate and no cure, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Omar Eid and Fouad Mirdad from the charity gave a speech, along with Sheikh Rajah Al-Ajmi.

A series of free training courses on awareness and social rehabilitation were also organized under the supervision and regulation of the Salem Bin Mahfouz charity institution.

Saleh Sarhan provided several of these training courses.

Abdullah Bawazir, director of City Youth Forum, said these programs target every segment of the community.

Programs include cultural, social, medical and developmental courses, sports programs, entertainment programs and games that take place under the supervision of technical and educational specialists.

“We have also establish special programs for housewives, as well as training programs and individual skills competitions for young men and women with beneficial and fruitful concepts from our religion with the aim of transforming youth into active community members,” he said.

The Ebola virus, which triggers hemorrhagic fever, attacks the blood system, making its victims bleed both internally and externally.

Ebola is highly contagious and is transmitted via contact with bodily fluids such as blood, sweat, saliva, semen or other body discharges. Ebola is not, however, an airborne virus.

Ebola symptoms include fever, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, stomach pain and lack of appetite.

Victims are usually treated for symptoms with the faint hope that the body’s self-defense system will ultimately prevail.

 
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