The Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 after outbreaks of the virus in Zaire and Sudan.
The virus is named after one of the first places where there was an outbreak, along the Ebola River in the DRC.
The host is believed to be fruit bats and monkeys and is then spread to humans who either handle or consume infected meat. Once in humans it is transfered via body fluids to others. It basically affects the internal organs of the infected person and causes death by "bleeding out".
Ebola was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the person who investigated this virus was Peter Piot.
In September 1976, a package containing a thermos flask arrived at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. Working in the lab that day was Peter Piot, a 27-year-old scientist and medical school graduate training as a clinical microbiologist. "It was just a normal flask" recalls Piot, now Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Nestled among a few melting ice cubes were vials of blood along with a note.
It was from a Belgian doctor based in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo - his handwritten message explained that the blood was that of a nun, also from Belgium, who had fallen ill with a mysterious illness which he couldn't identify. "When we opened the thermos, we saw that one of the vials was broken and blood was mixing with the water from the melted ice," says Piot.
He and his colleagues were unaware just how dangerous that was.
The samples were treated like numerous others the lab had tested before, but when the scientists placed some of the cells under an electron microscope they saw something they didn't expect.
"We saw a gigantic worm like structure - gigantic by viral standards," says Piot. "It's a very unusual shape for a virus, only one other virus looked like that and that was the Marburg virus."
The Marburg virus was first recognized in 1967 when 31 people became ill with hemorrhagic fever in the cities of Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany and in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia.
This Marburg outbreak was associated with laboratory staff who were working with infected monkeys imported from Uganda - seven people died. Piot knew how serious Marburg could be - but after consulting experts around the world he got confirmation that what he was seeing under the microscope wasn't Marburg - this was something never seen before.
it evolved bats and they had it and then they bit someone or something!
Belgian doctor Peter Piot in 1976.
It is a virus. Ebola is a RNA virus.
There are five strains of ebola virus. The Zaire ebola virus in 1976, Sudan ebola virus in 1976, Reston ebola virus in 1989, Cote d'Ivoire virus in 1994, Bundibugyo ebola virus discovered in the year 2007.
The four subtypes of Ebola virus were named after the country where they first isolated. They are:SudanIvory CoastZaireReston
It is a virus. Ebola is a RNA virus.
No. Ebola is a virus. No virus is a fungus and no fungus is a virus.
The Ebola virus was named after the river valley in the Congo. Ebola virus was originally named for Zaire, where it was first described.
Ebola is a virus disease.
The width of an ebola virus is about 100 nanometers.
The Ebola disease is caused by one of four ebola variants, BDBV, EBOV, SUDV or TAFV. They all come from the same place, however; Congo. Where the first Ebola virus was first found.
Ebola is a virus, and as such, it is not part of any of the kingdoms of life.
The virus is named after the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), which is near the site of the first recognized outbreak, a mission hospital run by Flemish nuns, in 1976.
No