Nature and History of Ebola Virus: An Overview

Context: Ebola virus is infamous due to its reputation in hemorrhagic fever disease outbreaks in various countries of the world including West Africa. Different species of Ebola virus along with Marburg virus under the family Filoviridae are 90% associated with mortality. Evidence Acquisition: The current paper briefly discussed the history of Ebola virus along with its origin, geographical distribution, structure, replication, reservoirs, hosts, pathogenicity, viral entry mechanism, mode of action, epidemiology, viral transmission, disease symptoms, diagnostic strategies, clinical applications, medication and protective measures to create awareness among people. Results: Before 2014, approximately the total loss of 1500 lives was recorded out of 2400 recognized cases, since the first discovery of Ebola virus in 1976. But the ongoing West African outbreak is the largest Ebola virus disease outbreak in the history, world health organization (WHO) reported a total of 28,599 cases observed and 11,289 deaths from this outbreak by 10 November 2015. Conclusions: Despite the known severity of Ebola outbreaks, no effective vaccine or therapeutic drug is developed so far because of the RNA coded nature of this virus, but many candidate vaccines are going on trial basis. Lethal and infectious nature of this virus requires the effective diagnostic methods. Scientists working in this field should be cooperative and committed to combat this natural disaster effectively.