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Which ebolavirus species causes the highest fatality rates in humans?
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Ebola
Numerous filamentous ebolavirus particles (blue) budding from a chronically-infected VERO E6 cell (yellow-green) in this digitally colorized scanning electron micrograph produced by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The Zaire ebolavirus species, which is represented by the Ebola virus (EBOV), is the deadliest of the ebolaviruses known to affect humans.12
It is associated with a case fatality rate ranging between 50 and 90 percent. First identified during an outbreak in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this virus was also the primary cause of the unprecedented Ebola outbreak of 2014–16 in western Africa.21