Ebola virus

noun

: any of several filoviruses (genus Ebolavirus and especially species Zaire ebolavirus) of African origin that cause an often fatal hemorrhagic fever

Examples of Ebola virus in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The current list includes: COVID-19; Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease; Lassa fever; Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and SARS; Nipah and henipaviral diseases; Rift Valley fever; Zika; Disease X. 3. Tribune News Service, Hartford Courant, 17 Jan. 2024 Some of his research has focused on building self-driving wheelchairs, improving the effectiveness of robot signals, and using robots to facilitate treatment for Ebola virus. Dakota Hill, oregonlive, 23 July 2023 Two decades on, Ebola virus now has been created in the lab, and so has a close relative of smallpox, horsepox. Janika Schmitt, STAT, 10 July 2023 Sarah Olson, director of health research at the Wildlife Conservation Society, has long wanted to conduct similar research on bats suspected of carrying the Ebola virus in the Republic of Congo. Caroline Chen, ProPublica, 23 May 2023 After outbreaks of Ebola Zaire, studies showed that infectious Ebola virus can hide out in areas where foreign invaders don’t seem to trigger immune responses. Brenda Goodman, CNN, 11 Jan. 2023 It is now believed this epidemic was caused by an individual who unknowingly carried the Ebola virus in his body from the 2013-2016 West African outbreak – before transmitting it in 2021. Zenger News, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2022 In 2019, a vaccine was approved for the Ebola virus that caused the 2014 outbreak. Erika Edwards, NBC News, 19 Oct. 2022 But state officials and infectious diseases experts told doctors to be on the lookout for symptoms consistent with Ebola virus infection among people who have traveled recently to Uganda. Los Angeles Times, 17 Oct. 2022

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Word History

Etymology

from the Ebola River in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire)

Note: According to Peter Piot, a Belgian member of an international commission formed to investigate the first outbreak of the virus in 1976, the name was chosen by members of the commission (including the French physician Pierre Sureau and the Americans Karl Johnson and Joel Breman) from a map of Zaire at the Fonds Médical Tropical, a non-governmental organization in Kinshasa where the members were lodged. Though the Ebola River (a headwater stream of the Mongala River, a tributary of the Congo) turned out to be a considerable distance from the village of Yambuku where the fever was first observed, the name was nonetheless retained. The name "Yambuku virus" was avoided because of the stigma it would have attached to the village. (See Peter Piot, No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses, W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 56-57.)

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of Ebola virus was in 1976

Dictionary Entries Near Ebola virus

Cite this Entry

“Ebola virus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ebola%20virus. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Medical Definition

Ebola virus

noun
: any of several single-stranded RNA viruses of the family Filoviridae (especially species Zaire Ebola virus) of African origin that cause an often fatal hemorrhagic fever
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