Except perhaps for the conscript press, which has its own permanent concerns, the world media seem focused on Ebola, which has stricken West Africa. In quick succession, the virus has drowned out stories about climate change, about the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, about the so-called “seismic change” in Church teaching on sexuality and marriage. It seems the only thing they want to talk about.

The current issue of The Economist narrates how the pandemic started in 1976, and quotes UN fears of its deadly spread in the days ahead. According to the story, the virus was first discovered by scientists in Antwerp from a thermos out of Yambuku, in what was then Zaire. The thermos contained two samples from a nun who was fatally ill. One of the vials had smashed and was lost. But they were able to scoop the other out of a pool of icy water, blood and broken glass, and there they saw they were handling an unnamed deadly virus. They did not want to call it Yambuku, so they named it after a local river, the Ebola, instead.

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