On January 15th, 2016, an ebola case was confirmed in Sierra Leone when a woman’s blood tested positive for the deadly virus. Ebola’s earliest cases occurred in 1976 in Sudan and Zaire, and spread rapidly. Its most recent epidemic began in March 2014; since then over 11,000 people have died from the virus in countries such as Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mali, and the US. In recent years, the number of known cases have spiked dramatically, affecting countries in West-Africa the most.

The most recent case of ebola is in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was previously thought to be rid of the virus as of November 2015. The 38 year old woman, whose blood tested positive for ebola, assisted with the burial of her niece. It has been confirmed that the death was ebola- related. At this time of the burial, the woman may have been exposed to the disease, as she came in close contact with the body. Although people at risk are being quarantined and monitored, little is known about the patient yet. However, the vaccination VSV-EBOV has been developed; it continues to be tested and administered to suspect-cases.

One of the most important aspects of dealing with such deadly diseases, such as Ebola, is de-stigmatizing it and educating people about it. During the first outbreaks of it, lives were lost simply because there were unhygienic practices going on, for example, the transmission through infected needles. For more information, there’s a myriad of articles courtesy of the World Health Organization (WHO), which have updates and information on the virus; BBC has created a timeline of sorts tracking Ebola as well. An additional resource is Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone, a fictional narrative of early cases or Ebola: The Natural And Human History Of A Deadly Virus by David Quammen.