One of the reasons viral zombies are used so often in movies is because that is the most likely potential origin of real-world zombies. Whilst they will be unlikely to be brain eaters, they will spread unrelenting, almost unstoppable death. All you need is an aggressive virus with a very high fatality rate which kills off the higher brain functions, keeps the body functioning for 5-7 days in order to replicate itself billions of times, and leaves enough of your brain functioning to "drive" your virus-heavy-living-corpse into a populated area to spread itself in a sudden, violent and bloody fashion.

The good news is, there is one.
I know, I know... you're thrilled.

It would seem that the cradle of life is also the cradle of death, as the Ebola virus was born in South Africa, in the Zaire region - although at this point no one knows exactly where it actually comes from. Primates can catch it and are thought to be the link in passing it to humans, but its actual origin is unknown. We think that Ebola is the most likely viral origin of what we can call zombies. Whilst not every single infected case has the extreme zombie-like symptoms, they are certainly there. The short explanation on Ebola is that the virus attacks every organ and the blood cell in the body causing them to die. Horribly. The long explanation follows...

During our research we have found conflicting information on the severity of symptoms, and have determined that there is basically a simple best-case/worst-case situation should you catch Ebola:

Best Case Symptoms & Disease Progression
- Fever
- Chills
- Headaches
- Muscle aches
- Sore throat
- Vomiting
- Lethargy/ Exhaustion
- Internal bleeding
- Systematic multi-organ failure
- Death

Worst Case Symptoms & Disease Progression
- Fever
- Chills
- Headaches
- Muscle aches
- Sore throat
- Vomiting
- Lethargy/ Exhaustion
- Memory loss
- Internal bleeding
- Partial brain death (frontal lobe, personality - after this stage your body will still be able to walk around, even though your "self" is gone)
- Systematic multi-organ failure
- Internal and external hemorrhage from all orifices (commonly called "crashing & bleeding out")
- Death

Those suffering from Ebola have certain physical characteristics. Their eyes go red due to the bursting blood vessels; muscles in the face go flaccid, giving the face a blank and emotionless look. There can be bleeding from the eyes and mouth due to hemorrhage, even skin sloughing off flesh in some advanced severe cases. As parts of the brain fall to the infection, movement becomes slow and lurching... I'm sure all of this is sounding familiar. There is even a good possibility that as the brain is suffocated to death by dead blood cells, the victim will go into violent grand mal epileptic seizures, possibly a strategy of the virus, spraying virus laden blood around and increasing the chance of spreading the infection. And don't go near a person dead of Ebola either - as the virus breaks out of the body at the point of actual death, from every orifice, every pore. Ebola victims should be buried in a fluid-proof bag, or burned.

Pretty nasty, huh? To boot, Ebola is a tricky lil thing and it mutates and evolves itself at a very fast rate. Currently there are 4 documented strains of it, with a possible 5th one just recently discovered. As of now there is no cure either, and the only course of action to halt an outbreak is to isolate the victims till they either die or recover.

To date, all of the full outbreaks of the virus have been in South Africa, except for one other... in the USA. In 1989 there was an airborne outbreak amongst laboratory chimps in Reston, Virginia, with a new strain (the imaginatively named Reston strain of Ebola) which fortunately is not harmful to humans, but fatal to primates. There have been a handful of isolated cases in other places around the world where laboratory primates are handled, but nothing significant. The largest outbreak so far was in 2001 - 2003 in the Congo, with 302 cases and 254 deaths. In total so far, there have been approximately 1850 cases, with over 1200 documented deaths.

The final punchline with Ebola is that it is real. And there is a terrible inevitability about it... One day, the Ebola Zaire strain, with its fatality rate of up to 90%, will become airborne. In theory, when this eventually happens (and this is a "when", not an "if" scenario due to the fast rate & inventive mutations of the Ebola virus family) it will only take 6 weeks for it to spread around the world, and will result in a drastic decrease in the human population.

That's something to look forward to, eh?

References - please be aware some may contain uncomfortable images/information.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/index.html
http://www.free-researchpapers.com/dbs/b8/sxm233.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola

Further Study- please be aware some may contain uncomfotable images/information
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston - a MUST READ for any serious zombophile - find it in our store.
The Plague Fighters - an amazing raw documentary on an ebola outbreak in Kikwit, SA - find it in our store.
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2005/12/are_fruit_bats_a_reservoir_for.php
http://cydathria.com/ebola.html - not for the squeamish.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/ebola.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7196812.stm