#ebola

#ebola

His two-year-old daughter died first, then his mother, then his wife. But Bope Mpona Heritier still had no idea what illness had taken their lives. Then the 25-year-old also began to develop symptoms. When his blood was tested and sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's capital, Kinshasa, the results confirmed he had the Ebola virus. I felt pain everywhere, he says. I had a migraine, a sharp pain in my eyes and throat, and I was vomiting.

The human body holds several effective hiding spots that some of the world's nastiest viruses have discovered like the eyes and the testes that are beyond the reach of the immune system. It's here that submicroscopic viral RNA can safely linger. Often the human hosts have no idea. They'd fallen ill, then appeared to beat the virus. Their blood tested negative. They show no symptoms.

An outbreak of Ebola has been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with 47 confirmed cases, including 25 deaths, as of yesterday, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). There are also a probable 10 additional cases and deaths, the WHO says. On 4 September, the DRC's Ministry of Health confirmed that the outbreak was caused by the Zaire ebolavirus, the most dangerous and common of Ebola virus strains, which was also responsible for the 2014-16 outbreak in West Africa.

"David was a great champion of global health and health equity, and a wise, generous mentor to countless individuals," WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus wrote.