Viral hemorrhagic fever

In the summer of 430 BCE, a ship from Egypt arrived in Piraeus with an uninvited guest on board: "the plague." The symptoms of this yet-to-be-identified disease - hypotheses range from typhoid fever to viral hemorrhagic fever - are described by the historian Thucydides, who was infected and survived.

A group of Turkish scientists have identified four rare viruses in Turkey that cause hemorrhagic fever and lead to death due to kidney failure, Daily Sabah reported.

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The Latest on Congot (all times local):

11:45 p.m.

Congo's Ministry of Health has announced 11 new confirmed Ebola cases and two deaths tied to cases in the country's northwest.

Turkey is set to become the first country to develop a vaccine for the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdağ said May 1, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

Akdağ said the ministry has been working on the vaccine for the past seven to eight years with Erciyes University.

A doctor said to be "extremely ill" after being infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone was being treated in the United States on Nov. 16, while the world's most powerful economies vowed to "extinguish" the deadly epidemic.
      

Global aid agency Doctors Without Borders said on Nov. 13 it would begin unprecedented trials within a month on Ebola drugs and blood from survivors using patients in west Africa.
      
The trials in Guinea are aimed at rushing out an emergency therapy to battle an epidemic which has taken more than 5,000 lives since December.
      

Ebola-hit nations met for crisis talks on Thursday as the death toll topped 1,500 and the World Health Organization warned that the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the outbreak is stemmed.
      

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned athletes from west African countries affected by the deadly Ebola virus from competing in some events at the Youth Olympics, starting in China this weekend.

The World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak an international public health emergency – its highest-level alert possible, Friday.

"The possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus," the UN health agency said in a statement, following a two day meeting in their headquarters in Geneva.

Low risk of Ebola outbreak - epidemiologist

BELGRADE -- Epidemiologist Bojana Grgić said on Friday that the risk of appearance of the Ebola virus in Serbia was low.