MicrobeWorld

An outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever that began in early July 2012 has involved at least 36 individuals and 16 deaths. So far the disease has been confined to a rural region west of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The subject of Richard Preston’s scary The Hot Zone, Ebola virus is newsworthy because it can be highly lethal and inspires scenarios of pandemics. An examination of the virus and the disease should temper our fear of this pathogen.