Sammanfattning
The 2014 Ebola fever outbreak was the first of its kind in West Africa. This epidemic, affecting multiple countries, by far
exceeded any previous outbreak in case counts and geographical spread. But Ebola viruses are not new to Africa, as they have
occurred in epidemic proportion in the central part of the continent since 1976. The objective of this article is to compare
previous outbreaks with the ongoing epidemic in an effort to identify some of the factors which have contributed to the size and
scope of the existing outbreak.