Fake emails pretending to be Ebola information from the WHO or the Mexican government have, in 2014, been misused to spread computer malware. The BBC reported in 2015 that "North Korean state media has suggested the disease was created by the U.S. military as a biological weapon." Literature
Richard Prestons 1995 best-selling book, The Hot Zone, dramatised the Ebola outbreak in Reston, Virginia.William Closes 1995 Ebola: A Documentary Novel of Its First Explosion and 2002 Ebola: Through the Eyes of the People focused on individuals reactions to the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire.Tom Clancys 1996 novel, Executive Orders, involves a Middle Eastern terrorist attack on the United States using an airborne form of a deadly Ebola virus strain named "Ebola Mayinga" (see Mayinga NSeka).As the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa developed in 2014, a number of popular self-published and well-reviewed books containing sensational and misleading information about the disease appeared in electronic and printed formats. The authors of some such books admitted that they lacked medical credentials and were not technically qualified to give medical advice. The World Health Organization and the United Nations stated that such misinformation had contributed to the spread of the disease. Other animals
Wild animals
Ebola has a high mortality rate among primates. Frequent outbreaks of Ebola may have resulted in the deaths of 5,000 gorillas. Outbreaks of Ebola may have been responsible for an 88% decline in tracking indices of observed chimpanzee populations in the 420 km2 Lossi Sanctuary between 2002 and 2003.
Ebola, also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates, caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after becoming infected with the virus. The first symptoms are usually fever, sore throat, muscle pain, and headaches. These are usually followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash and decreased liver and kidney function, at which point, some people begin to bleed both internally and externally. The disease kills between 25% and 90% of those infected – about 50% on average. Death is often due to shock from fluid loss, and typically occurs between six and 16 days after the first symptoms appear.The virus spreads through direct contact with body fluids, such as blood from infected humans or other animals, or from contact with items that have recently been contaminated with infected body fluids. There have been no documented cases, either in nature or under laboratory conditions, of the disease spreading through the air between humans or other primates. After a person recovers from Ebola, their semen or breast milk may continue to carry the virus for anywhere between several weeks to several months. Fruit bats are believed to be the normal carrier in nature; they are able to spread the virus without being affected by it. The symptoms of Ebola may resemble those of several other diseases, including malaria, cholera, typhoid fever, meningitis and other viral hemorrhagic fevers.