Ebola virus (EVD), one of the deadliest viral diseases, was discovered in 1976 when two consecutive outbreaks of fatal hemorrhagic fever occurred in different parts of Central Africa. The first EBOLA outbreak occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) in a village near the Ebola River, which gave the virus its name. The second outbreak occurred in what is now South Sudan, approximately 500 miles (850 km) away.

A doctor who helped discover the Ebola virus disease has warned that many dangerous diseases are on the verge of spreading which could be as transmitted as rapidly as the coronavirus and be as deadly as the Ebola virus. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a Disease X is the possibility of an international epidemic that can spread from a pathogen unknown to humankind. The disease has been included in the list of priority diseases by the health body and experts opine that it is important we stay alert and fear the breakout of any new pathogen.

Cases of the EBOLA outbreak

This scientific warning has been given after a woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has shown early symptoms of hemorrhagic fever. While she has been tested for Ebola, researchers fear if she is the patient zero of the hypothetical Disease X which spreads faster than COVID and has Ebola’s 50 to 90 per cent fatality rate.

The current EBOLA outbreak in Guinea was detected after a 51-year-old nurse who had originally been diagnosed with typhoid and malaria died in late January. Several people who attended her funeral fell ill, including members of her family and a traditional healer who had treated her, and four of them died. Researchers suspected Ebola might have caused all of the deaths, and in early February they discovered the virus in the blood of the nurse’s husband. An Ebola outbreak was officially declared on 13 February, with the nurse the likely index case.

Another ongoing outbreak of Ebola in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was also started by transmission from someone infected during a previous outbreak, Delaporte notes. (The survivor had tested negative for Ebola twice after his illness in 2020.)