What is the actual mortality rate? I have heard reports varying from 40% to 90%.
What is the actual mortality rate? I have heard reports varying from 40% to 90%.
Current outbreak appears to be around 50-55% mortality.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moreorless
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moreorless/moreor...
edit - It also says that 52% is the current figure on this outbreak and that if you count up all cases, then Ebola has a mortality rate of 60-65%.
With the Zaire strain, now just called plain Ebola virus, normally with an observed fatality rate of 83% or 76% (two figures from different Wikipedia articles) and up to 90%, and at the other end a Reston ebolavirus with no fatalities among exposed lab workers.
This West African outbreak has been sequenced and is a Zaire strain with plenty of mutations that perhaps have significantly dropped its fatality rate, see this section and the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_virus_o...