Disease

Ebola - DR Congo

The second-largest Ebola outbreak in history has spread to a major city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as health experts worry whether the stock of an experimental vaccine will stand up to the demands of an epidemic with no end in sight.

Butembo, with more than 1 million residents, is now reporting cases of the deadly hemorrhagic fever. That complicates Ebola containment work already challenged by rebel attacks elsewhere that have made tracking the virus almost impossible in some isolated villages.

Sweden - Ancient Strain of Plague Discovered

In a nearly 5,000-year-old tomb in Sweden, researchers have discovered the oldest-known strain of the notorious bacterium Yersinia pestis — the microbe responsible for humanity's perhaps most-feared contagion: the plague.

The finding suggests that the germ may have devastated settlements across Europe at the end of the Stone Age in what may have been the first major pandemic of human history. It could also rewrite some of what we know of ancient European history.

The researchers discovered the previously unknown strain of plague in the remains of a woman at the Frälsegården excavation site. The limestone tomb was dated to the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, the period when farming began.