Two children wait for their relatives' bodies outside of Kikwit General Hospital, Zaire, May, 12, 1995. (Xinhua/AP)

Criminal history

The Ebola virus was originally called the Zaire virus (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), after the country where it was first described in 1976. The virus was renamed the "Ebola virus" in 2010 to avoid confusion. In 1979, there was a second outbreak of Ebola virus in Sudan. Between 1995 and 2014, there were over 20 outbreaks of Ebola, mostly in Africa. The 2000 Uganda outbreak killed 224 people, the largest number until this year's outbreak.