The Ebola virus is a significant global health threat and is a growing humanitarian crisis in Africa, killing thousands of victims in 2014.If not handled properly, an Ebola outbreak can turn into an epidemic, overwhelming regional health services and disrupting trade and the delivery of social services, causing the welfare and economy of a region to deteriorate. The ongoing viral load in the human population increases the likelihood of further mutation. Additionally, the virus's long incubation period and our highly connected modern world could allow the virus to spread to new geographies and across oceans.Currently, there are no approved treatments or vaccines for this deadly disease, and the search for an effective antiviral drug to treat the disease is a high priority. While previous outbreaks have ended when the disease disappeared from the human population, the scope of the 2014 outbreak raises the possibility that the virus, rather than disappearing again, could become endemic - permanently persisting in human populations in one or more areas.