The Ebola menace: Epidemic, evidence and expectations

Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 when an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurred in Zaire and another later that year in Sudan. Each outbreak had about 300 victims, but did not spread much larger than that because of the remoteness of the areas in which they occurred. The Zaire Ebola virus has one of the highest fatality rates of any pathogenic virus affecting humans. This outbreak was caused by EBOV, formerly designated Zaire ebolavirus, which is a different member of the genus Ebolavirus than in the first Sudan outbreak. The first person infected with the disease was village school headmaster Mabalo Lokela, who began displaying symptoms on 26 August 1976. Ivory Coast Ebola virus was first discovered in 1994 when a scientist conducting autopsies on chimpanzees International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 4 Number 1 (2015) pp. 731-747 http://www.ijcmas.com