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A sign marking an unidentified Ebola victim's grave is seen at a cemetery in Freetown. In the end, the catastrophic epidemic claimed more than 11,000 lives in six West African countries—Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, and Senegal.
See also: Deadly diseases you thought were gone...but aren't!
Ebola! The very name instills dread and bewilderment. And so it should. Ebola virus disease (EVD), an acute, serious illness that is often fatal if untreated, is a condition that, while rare, spreads at an alarming rate once transmitted.
The disease is passed to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. Signs and symptoms typically start between two days and three weeks after contracting the virus. Fever, sore throat, muscular pain, and headaches are early indicators. Vomiting, diarrhea, and rash usually follow. Later stages of EVD are marked by decreased function of the liver and kidneys. Soon afterwards, victims can start to bleed both internally and externally. For many, a slow, painful demise is inevitable—the disease has a high risk of death, killing between 25 and 90% of those infected, with an average of about 50%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
It's an illness that sounds straight out of medieval history books. But this terrible virus is very much part of the 21st century, and has killed thousands across western Africa.
First identified in 1976, Ebola has since risen its ugly head on numerous occasions across several African countries. Click through this gallery for a brief recent history of this awful disease.
The largest outbreak to date is the epidemic in West Africa, which occurred from December 2013 to January 2016, with 28,646 cases and 11,323 deaths. Another outbreak in the DRC began in 2017. (
The dreadful 2014-2016 West African outbreak emerged out of Guinea in March 2014. Researchers with WHO traced the source to an infant who had died in December 2013.
The deadly consequences of Ebola
On June 27, 1976, an Ebola epidemic broke out for the first time in recorded history
HEALTH Diseases
Ebola! The very name instills dread and bewilderment. And so it should. Ebola virus disease (EVD), an acute, serious illness that is often fatal if untreated, is a condition that, while rare, spreads at an alarming rate once transmitted.
The disease is passed to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. Signs and symptoms typically start between two days and three weeks after contracting the virus. Fever, sore throat, muscular pain, and headaches are early indicators. Vomiting, diarrhea, and rash usually follow. Later stages of EVD are marked by decreased function of the liver and kidneys. Soon afterwards, victims can start to bleed both internally and externally. For many, a slow, painful demise is inevitable—the disease has a high risk of death, killing between 25 and 90% of those infected, with an average of about 50%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
It's an illness that sounds straight out of medieval history books. But this terrible virus is very much part of the 21st century, and has killed thousands across western Africa.
First identified in 1976, Ebola has since risen its ugly head on numerous occasions across several African countries. Click through this gallery for a brief recent history of this awful disease.