What is the Ebola virus, and how worried should we be?

As the death toll from Ebola reaches 670, a second Amercian doctor contracts the virus in Liberia, and it is feared to have spread to Nigeria, here's an explanation of what Ebola is, how it is spread, and how worried we should be

The World Health Organisation says Ebola is one of the most virulent viral diseases known to humankind, causing death in 50 to 90 percent of all clinically ill cases

What is Ebola?
Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is described by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "a severe, often fatal illness in humans."
It first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks - in Nzara, Sudan; and in Yambuku, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter was in a village situated near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name. It is mainly found in tropical Central and West Africa, and can have a 90 per cent mortality rate - although it is now at about 60 per cent.

How is it transmitted?
The virus is known to live in fruit bats, and normally affects people living in or near tropical rainforests.
It is introduced into the human population through close contact with the sweat, blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.
The virus then spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids.

Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace sparks succession speculation with move into politics

Mrs Mugabe nominated as secretary of the ruling Zanu PF party's Women's League as her 90-year-old husband sees out twilight years of more than three decades in power

                                                            Zimbabwean President Robert Muagbe with his wife Grace

Grace Mugabe, the wife of Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe, has made her first move into frontline politics by accepting the nomination for secretary of the Zanu PF Women’s League.
Her election to the post at the Zanu PF congress in December means she will take her place in the ruling party’s politburo and, some have speculated, could even propel her into the increasingly acrimonious race to be nominated as her 90-year-old husband’s successor ahead of the party’s congress in December.

Mrs Mugabe, 49, become the president’s second wife after serving as a secretary in his typing pool when she married him in 1996, a year after the death of his first wife, Sally, a Ghanaian. The couple have three children, two of whom were born while the first Mrs Mugabe was still alive.

Female bombers target Nigeria trade show, petrol station, three dead

 Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a trade show and a petrol station in northern Nigeria's biggest city of Kano on Monday, killing one other person and injuring at least six others, police and a military source said.

"A show was goıng on at the trade faır complex. A young lady wearıng a veıl came and sought to enter. At the poınt when she was beıng searched by securıty at the gate, she detonated an explosıon, whıch kılled her and ınjured sıx others," Kano police command spokesman Magajı Majıya said.
The other suicide bomber at the petrol station killed herself and another person, the military source said, without giving further details of that blast.

Sierra Leone Ebola patient, recovered from family, dies in ambulance

A Sierra Leone Ebola patient whose family sparked a nationwide hunt when they forcefully removed her from a treatment center and took her to a traditional healer, died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, a health official said.

Health officials say fear and mistrust of health workers in Sierra Leone, where many have more faith in traditional medicine, are hindering efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 450 people in the country.

In recent days crowds gathered outside clinics and hospitals to protest against what they see as a conspiracy, in some cases clashing with police as they threatened to burn down the buildings and remove the patients.

Amadu Sisi, a senior doctor at King Harman hospital in the capital Freetown, from which the patient was taken, said on Saturday that police found her in the house of a healer.

Bomb attack on church in Nigeria's Kano kills five

 A bomb attack on a Catholic church in northern Nigeria's main city of Kano killed five people and wounded eight on Sunday, a senior police officer said.

The bomber threw the bomb at worshippers on their way out of the church, police commissioner Adenrele Shinaba told Reuters.

Police cordoned off the scene.

In a separate attack, a female suicide bomber tried to attack police officers on the streets. She killed herself but only wounded to of them, Shinaba said.