The Zaire Ebola Virus

• The Zaire Ebola Virus 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 are 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 transmitted by contact with blood, feces or body fluids from an infected person or by direct contact with the virus, as in a laboratory.

• The incubation period --the period between contact with the virus and the appearance of symptoms -- ranges from 2 to 21 days.