In December, the headlines were euphoric: After a deadly West African Ebola epidemic two years ago, scientists had not only developed a vaccine, but it appeared to be 100 percent effective. That effectiveness was quickly disputed—but now, as a new Ebola outbreak is rattling the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the…
Like humans, gorillas and chimpanzees can get infected by Ebola. To protect our closest relatives from this dreaded disease, and to prevent the virus from spilling over into human populations, scientists have now developed an oral vaccine to combat Ebola in the wild. It sounds very promising, but the researchers have…
A new Ebola vaccine provides 100 percent protection against one of the two most common strains of the Ebola virus. The results of this trial were released in The Lancet on Thursday. Although the vaccine—known as rVSV-ZEBOV—has yet to be approved by regulators, the New York Times reports that scientists have already…
Scientists have learned that upwards of 25 percent of all people who become infected with Ebola show none of the typical symptoms. The finding suggests the recent West African Ebola Epidemic was more widespread than previously thought, and that new methods need to be developed to diagnose and contain the dreaded virus…
A new analysis of the Ebola genome shows the dreaded virus acquired several new mutations during the course of the 2013-2016 West African Epidemic, making it even better at infecting human cells.
Much like their human hosts, some deadly pathogens just can’t let go. That’s apparently true of the Ebola virus, which was detected in a Liberian man’s semen an incredible 565 days after he recovered from illness, according to a new CDC report.
While the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has officially ended, isolated cases have appeared in Sierra Leone and Guinea earlier this year, prompting worries that the virus will likely have a constant presence in the region. A new study brings up some additional concerns: the virus might lie dormant in survivors longer…
With summer approaching, the risk of a surge in cases of the Zika virus has become a major concern for US officials, and the White House has announced that they would be redirecting money earmarked for Ebola to efforts combatting Zika.
While the West African Ebola Outbreak largely came to an end back in January, isolated cases are still appearing, including two cases which emerged this week in Guinea.
Just hours after West Africa was declared Ebola-free, officials in Sierra Leone have confirmed that there has been a new death from the disease in the north of the country.
It’s been a long, hard fight, but the World Health Organization has finally announced that West Africa is Ebola-free.
The past few months have seen a dramatic rise in the number of experts researching the prevention or treatment of Ebola. That rise hasn’t been dramatic enough, in part because Ebola has to be tested at expensive, highly specialized facilities. Now there’s a plan to change that.
Mutated viruses have long been the bogeyman of science fiction films, but in the case of Ebola, mutation could be its downfall. New research suggests the virus’s own tendency to mutate could one day lead to an effective treatment.
Bats are suspected, although not proved, to have been the origin of multiple human diseases, including Ebola and rabies. New maps show the hot spots where outbreaks are most likely to occur, and which diseases are most likely to be transmitted from bats to humans. One of those is the region of the devastating 2014…
Welcome to this week’s Reading List, where you’ll find the best science and technology stories on the internet assembled in one delightful package. This week,
A panel of independent health experts has published a report that explains how a slow international response and a lack of appropriate leadership in tacking the Ebola epidemic caused “needless suffering and death” across West Africa.
Reports from health authorities in Liberia have confirmed that a new case of Ebola has been identified in the country, which had previously been declared Ebola-free.
After a year and a half since the first case was reported in the West African country, Sierra Leone has been declared Ebola free, 42 days after the last case was cleared. The announcement is one further step forward in the fight against the 2014 outbreak.
According to a new study from the United Nations Development Programme (which we saw via Quartz), teen pregnancy rates in West Africa are surging. The increase in these rates, already some of the highest in the world, is in large part because of the 2014 Ebola crisis.
Ebola is a filovirus, and although it is the best-known of the Filovirdae, it’s no worse than its cousin, Marburg virus. One is named for the Ebola river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the other is named for a town in Germany. But how did a virus from Africa get a German name?
