I was reading PhysOrg yesterday and came across an article about the Ebola outbreak that is currently underway in western Uganda. The article is an interview with a doctor who contracted the disease from patients brought to his hospital. He survived the disease and is currently recovering. You can read the article here.
The reason the article caught my eye, is because it had Uganda in the title. A relative of mine regularly goes to Uganda on humanitarian missions. So news about Uganda always catches my attention. After reading the article I decided to find out more about the Ebola virus. Here is what I found out.
Ebola is considered to be one of the deadliest diseases in the world. So deadly that it was even investigated by both the Soviet Union and the US as a potential bio-weapon. Amazingly it was rejected by both nations because it proved to be too deadly. It killed it’s victims so quickly that it didn’t have time to spread far enough to be used as a weapon.
It was first identified in 1976 when two nearly simultaneous outbreaks happened in Sudan and Zaire. It was named after the Ebola River that is close to the first outbreak site in Zaire. So far, no one really knows where the disease comes from. It is known that it is nearly always fatal in both humans and other primates. But the carrier animal population has never been identified.
If you want to know more, follow the links below.
Wikipedia: Ebola
CDC Special Pathogens Branch: Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever
World Health Organization: Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever fact sheet
