For centuries the Ebola River in Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo, flowed calmly. Or is the proverbial, “Calm before the storm” coming true? Indeed it is. Still waters run deep holding dark secrets, and Ebola River which means ‘Black River’ has lent its name, to a deadly virus discovered in fruit bats near the river’s vicinity in 1976.

Looking Back

  Ngoy Mushola, a doctor from Zaire, was at Yambuku Town on the shores of the Ebola River in 1976, when he filed the first clinical description of a new disease that was killing almost all of the patients who contracted it. This disease christened Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, was characterized with a high temperature of about 39°C, hematemesis or the vomiting of blood, internal and external bleeding that is oozing from the gums and blood in the stools, respectively, abdominal pain, and quick death within an average of three days since infection.....