Ebola Sudan
(map of Sudan, Africa)
This was the first initial outbreak of the Ebola virus. This took place mostly in Sudan, thus the strain's name. A total of 284 people were infected, and 150 were killed. The mortality rate was about 53%.

~ Nzara and Maridi, Sudan in Africa

~ 1976

Ebola-Sudan (EBO-S) was first found in Nzara, Sudan; and later in Maridi, Tembura, and Juba. It all started on June 27, 1976 when a man, known as the case YuG, who worked at the cloth room in the Nzara Cotton Manufacturing Factory, became deathly ill with a hemorrhagic fever, and died on July 6, 1976 in the Nzara hospital. (He had Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, also known as EHF, caused by the Ebola virus). The next case, known as Bz, worked with YuG in the cloth room. He died on July 14 in the hospital. Bz's wife also suffered a fatal case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, due to the fact she nursed her husband during his sickness. The most important primary case during this epidemic was PG, and it is said he greatly helped the disease spread. PG worked in the same cloth room; he first had symptoms on July 18 and died on July 27, after visiting the Nzara hospital several times. 69% of the Ebola cases in Nzara, Maridi, and Tembura could be traced back to PG. In fact, the WHO (World Health Organization) investigated, and believe that one transmission of Ebola-Sudan of six generations could be traced back to PG.
 

In the second outbreak, 34 people were infected, with 22 cases being fatal. This made the death rate 65%. All the cases had direct links to the index case who worked at the Nzara Cotton Manufacturing Factory.

~ Nzara, Sudan in Africa

~1979

It all began with a 45 year-old man who was taken to the Nzara hospital, on August 2, 1979, suffering from a fever he had for three days. He then showed symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. August 5, 1979, he died of a gastrointestinal hemorrhaging. The hospital was unaware of the severity of the disease, so they did not take precautionary isolation measures, or try decontamination methods. Several weeks later, the hospital administration discovered that the three of the man's relatives had also died from the same hemorrhagic fever.

In late August, members of a second family developed the same hemorrhagic fever, and an outbreak was then confirmed. The infected people were hospitalized, and the region was quarantined in early September, where the district was kept under surveillance. On September 22, 1979, after two more nurses working at the Nzara hospital died of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, the World Health Organization sponsored a crew to go and try to prevent the outbreak from spreading further. Like the first outbreak, the virus eventually "died out" (stopped spreading to new hosts).
 

Other Outbreaks