A new Wall Street Journal video details the discovery of Ebola nearly 40 years ago, in 1976, as told by microbiologist Peter Piot, a co-founder of the virus.
A blood sample, from a Belgian nun who passed away, that was initially thought to be yellow fever, proved to be something else under further microscope inspection.
Initial questions after the discovery included time (as it relates to pattern), place and people affected. Additional questions included how the virus was being transmitted also the detriment of contracting the virus. To answer these questions, Piot and his team went to the Congo where the first sample came from.
To find an answer to the who, Pinot and his team separated those infected by age and sex and discovered something surprising. More women than men were found [to be] infected and died, Pinot said. The ages of the majority of victims were also between 20 and 30 years old. The difference between those two age groups was the ability for women to get pregnant as they aged.
The women who were sent to the maternity ward where the same needles and syringes were used from patient to patient, hence the very first Ebola spread.
Watch Pinot explain it in his own words below.
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