Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is the cause of a viral hemorrhagic fever disease that most commonly affects people and non-human primates. See CDC Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) for more information. EVD is a rare but severe and often deadly disease.
Symptoms
Signs and symptoms of Ebola virus disease may appear 2 to 21 days after exposure to the virus, but the average is 8 to 10 days. A person infected with Ebola virus is not contagious until symptoms appear. Signs and symptoms include:
- Fever
- Headache
- Muscle and joint pain
- Weakness
- Tiredness (fatigue)
- Diarrhea
- Vomiting
- Stomach pain
- Lack of appetite
- Unexplained bleeding or bruising
How it Spreads (Transmission)
Ebola is spread through:
- Direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids (urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, amniotic fluid, and semen) of an infected symptomatic person.
- Direct contact with a person who died from EVD.
- Exposure to objects (such as clothes, bedding, needles, and medical equipment) that have been contaminated with infected body fluids.
- Eating bushmeat.
- Blood or body fluids of infected fruit bats or nonhuman primates such as apes and monkeys.
- Semen of men who have recovered from previous EVD infection (through oral, vaginal, or anal sex).
Ebola is NOT spread through:
- Individuals who have no symptoms.
- The air. Ebola cannot be spread through the air like Influenza (Flu) can.
- Water.
- Food grown or legally purchased in the U.S.
Prevention & Vaccine
- Avoid contact with blood and body fluids (such as urine, feces, saliva, sweat, vomit, breast milk, amniotic fluid, semen, and vaginal fluids) of people who are sick.
- Avoid contact with semen from a man who has recovered from EVD, until testing shows that the virus is gone from his semen.
- Avoid contact with items that may have come in contact with an infected person’s blood or body fluids (such as clothes, bedding, needles, and medical equipment).
- Avoid funeral or burial practices that involve touching the body of someone who died from EVD or suspect EVD.
- Avoid contact with bats, forest antelopes, and nonhuman primates (such as monkeys and chimpanzees) blood, fluids, or raw meat prepared from these or unknown animals (bushmeat).
- After returning from an area experiencing an Ebola outbreak, people should monitor their health for 21 days and seek medical care immediately if they develop symptoms of EVD.
- Ebola vaccine
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Ebola vaccine, ERVEBO®, for the prevention of EVD. This vaccine has been found to be safe and protective against only the Zaire ebolavirus species of ebolavirus. See the CDC Ebola vaccine page for more information.
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