First identified as a virus-caused disease in the 1970s, Ebola is a notoriously deadly virus that causes fearsome symptoms, the most prominent being high fever and massive internal bleeding. Ebola virus kills as many as 90% of the people it infects. It is one of the viruses that is capable of causing hemorrhagic (bloody) fever.

Epidemics of Ebola virus have occurred mainly in African countries including Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), Gabon, Uganda, the Ivory Coast, and Sudan. Ebola virus is a hazard to laboratory workers and anyone who is exposed to it.

Ebola virus is an extremely contagious filovirus causing an acute, highly fatal hemorrhagic fever that spreads through contact with bodily fluids or secretions of infected persons and by airborne particles. It usually kills 9 out of 10 people it infects almost always immediately. Because there is currently no prevention or cure for the disease, the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, during which about 800 people died, caused a widespread alarm.

	Year	Location	No. of human cases	Percentage of deaths among cases
	1976	Zaire	318	88% (9 out of 10)
		Sudan	284	53% (1 out of 2)
	1979	Sudan	34	65% (1 out of 3)
	1994	Gabon	49	59% (3 out of 5)
	1995	Republic of the Congo (formely Zaire)	315	81% (4 out of 5)
	1996	Gabon	91	72% (7 out of 10)
	2000-2001	Uganda	425	53% (1 out of 2)
		Gabon & Republic of the Congo (formery Zaire)	122	79% (4 out of 5)

Source; CDC, Special Pathogens Branch.  Last updated November 26, 2003