The Second Ebola Strain: The 1976 Sudan Outbreak
Ebola Virus Outbreaks and Facts
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The Second Strain: A Separate, Simultaneous OutbreakThis time the location is Sudan, Africa in the city of N'zara, which is 400 miles from Yambuku, Zaire. This may not seem like a long distance with today's travel choices in developed countries like the United States, but the only way to travel between Yambuku and N'zara was via dirt paths that created a long treacherous journey. On June 27, 1976 a worker in a cotton factory became ill; this person is the index case for this Ebola outbreak. He died on July 6, 1976. One of his symptoms was massive bleeding, which is also known as hemorrhaging. Two other workers in the cotton factory became ill as did friends and family of the sick workers. Hospital staff also became ill and died. Many sick people would not go to the hospital because they were convinced they would die if they did.
In the end 284 people became ill, but only 53% of them died. Sixty-nine percent of the people who contracted the disease were infected by a single infected cotton factory worker. All deaths could be traced back to the ill cotton factory workers. Scientific testing would prove that the virus causing the illnesses and deaths was Ebola, but it was a different strain than the one in Zaire. This new strain was named Ebola-Sudan. The disease caused by the Ebola virus became known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) because two of its primary symptoms were fever and bleeding, or hemorrhaging. |