The largest Ebola outbreak occurred in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. Global efforts succeeded in ending the epidemic on January 14, 2016, but outbreaks continued in several regions of Africa.
A plague stalks its prey like a monster!
In that great outbreak in West Africa, the epidemic began in Guinea and then spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal. At that time, the epidemic infected more than 28,000 people, killing more than 11,000 of them, and the mortality rate was about 40 percent.
In mid-January 2016, the World Health Organization declared the end of the major Ebola outbreak in West Africa, citing the interruption of the virus's transmission chain in all affected countries. Two incubation periods of 43 days had passed without any new cases of Ebola being recorded, and according to WHO protocols, this meant the outbreak was over.
The Ebola epidemic was first discovered in 1976 in the Nzara region of South Sudan and Yambuku in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), infecting more than 600 people with a mortality rate of approximately 88 percent. Subsequently, the epidemic appeared in several outbreaks across the African continent, including one in 1995 in Kikwit, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), which caused 254 deaths with a mortality rate of 81 percent.
Following the major outbreak between 2014 and 2016, a new wave of the epidemic emerged between 2018 and 2020 in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This outbreak claimed the lives of more than 2,200 people, with a mortality rate of 66 percent. Importantly, the epidemic was halted for the first time using the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine.
A year later, in 2021, a new Ebola outbreak emerged in the Nzérékoré region of Guinea, causing the deaths of 12 out of 23 infected individuals. The mortality rate at that time was 52 percent.
The next outbreak occurred in 2022 in Uganda, infecting 142 people, of whom 55 died, resulting in a case fatality rate of 39 percent. In 2023, another wave of the epidemic emerged in the same country, Uganda, claiming 77 lives, with a case fatality rate of 47 percent.
What distinguishes Ebola from other epidemics?
The Ebola epidemic differs from other epidemics in several aspects, most notably that the virus causing the infection in this epidemic belongs to the Filovirus family, and it is only spreading in certain remote areas of the African continent, unlike other epidemics such as COVID-19, which has spread throughout the world.
Ebola is also primarily spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, such as blood, vomit, and feces, while the coronavirus is spread through the air via respiratory droplets. This is why the Ebola epidemic has spread more slowly than other viruses.
The Ebola epidemic remains highly dangerous despite a decline in the death rate during recent outbreaks. This serious infection causes symptoms such as fever and internal and external bleeding, and its complications can lead to kidney and liver failure.
The fight against Ebola remains ongoing despite previous waves being contained and eradicated. This stubborn epidemic still lurks, waiting for an opportunity to strike its victims in the African jungles like a monster.
