Template:POTD/2020-03-26
Zaire ebolavirus, more commonly known as Ebola virus (EBOV), is one of six known species within the genus Ebolavirus. Four of the six known ebolaviruses, including EBOV, cause a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and other mammals, known as Ebola virus disease (EVD). Ebola virus has caused the majority of human deaths from EVD, and was the cause of the 2013–2016 epidemic in western Africa, which resulted in at least 28,646 suspected cases and 11,323 confirmed deaths. The EBOV genome is of negative-sense single-stranded RNA, approximately 19,000 nucleotides in length. Bats, predominantly fruit bats, are believed to be the natural reservoir of the virus, which is primarily transmitted between humans and from animals to humans through body fluids. Infection with the virus produces a high mortality rate among humans.
This picture is a colorized scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles (green), visible both as extracellular particles and budding particles from a chronically infected African green monkey kidney cell (blue), at 20,000× magnification. This image was taken in a biosafety level 4 facility, the highest level of biosafety precautions, which is used for easily transmissible agents that cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which there are no available vaccines or treatments.Photograph credit: John G. Bernbaum