Mayinga N'Seka (1954 – October 19, 1976 in

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one of ...

) was a nurse in

Zaïre Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

, now

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. She died from

Ebola virus disease Ebola, also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates, caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after becom ...

during the 1976 epidemic in Zaïre. She has been incorrectly identified as the index case by several sources, but a

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...

commission report on the outbreak lists a man from Yambuku, Mabalo Lokela, as the index case. Lokela, a 44-year-old who had been buying meat in Sudan, died on September 8, 1976, over a month before N'Seka.

Biography

N'Seka worked as a nurse at Mbalad Hospital in

and contracted Ebola after caring for a Roman Catholic nun who had flown in for treatment from the Yambuku Mission Hospital, where the outbreak began. Mayinga died at Ngaleima Hospital on October 19, 1976. There were 318 cases in that outbreak, which had an 88% mortality rate. In his book about the 1976 outbreak, ''Ebola'',

William Close William Taliaferro Close (June 7, 1924 – January 15, 2009) was an American surgeon who played a major role in stemming a 1976 outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire, the first major outbreak of the viral hemorrhagic fever in Central Africa, a ...

writes that N'Seka had treated a nun, Sister Fermina, who worked at the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

mission in Yambuku, the center of the outbreak. Another nun and a priest had also been brought to the capital for treatment. Officials hurried to find N'Seka's contacts in the city, including staff of the United States Embassy (where she had been finalizing a student visa). Fermina died at the hospital in Kinshasa while trying to return to

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

so a diagnosis on the disease could be performed. The highly infectious and deadly nature of the disease was still unknown when N'Seka treated Fermina, and no special precautions were taken to prevent contact with the nun's blood or

fluids In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any she ...

. The 22-year-old N'Seka was preparing to travel to America to study advanced nursing on a scholarship at the time of her death. N'Seka was born in 1954.

Legacy

The variant of the

Ebola virus ''Zaire ebolavirus'', more commonly known as Ebola virus (; EBOV), is one of six known species within the genus '' Ebolavirus''. Four of the six known ebolaviruses, including EBOV, cause a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and o ...

that infected N'Seka was originally named "

Zaïre virus strain Mayinga ''Zaire ebolavirus'', more commonly known as Ebola virus (; EBOV), is one of six known species within the genus '' Ebolavirus''. Four of the six known ebolaviruses, including EBOV, cause a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and ...

" (now Ebola virus variant Mayinga; EBOV/May), and is the prototype virus for the species '' Zaire ebolavirus'', which is itself the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specim ...

for the genus '' Ebolavirus''. N'Seka's blood has also been used all over the world in procuring various strain frequencies and structures about Ebola virus. No agreement was made with the government to distribute it.

References

1954 births 1976 deaths Democratic Republic of the Congo nurses Infectious disease deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Deaths from Ebola {{med-bio-stub