Few diseases are as terrifying as Ebola. It is a highly contagious disease, with no known cure, that induces great suffering on its victims. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, and gruesome internal and external bleeding.
Most ominous is the fatality rate, which can claim as many as 90 percent of the people who catch the virus. Paradoxically the lethality of Ebola is one of the biggest constraints on its spread: So many of the victims die so quickly that outbreaks invariably burn themselves out when authorities are able to quarantine and isolate the victims.
The current outbreak of the disease in West Africa has defied that trajectory and has many officials worried as a result. The outbreak was first observed in Guinea in February; after two months, nearly 250 people had been reported infected and 59 percent had died as a result of the disease. A month later, cases were reported in Conakry, a city of 2 million people and the capital of Guinea.