The Ebola virus which causes it is initially transmitted from wild animals, then spread through close human to human contact. It's passed via body fluids such as blood, sweat, saliva or tears.
What are the symptoms?
To begin with, the symptoms are similar to those of people with flu, says Dr Myrto Schaefer, Director of the Medical Unit at Médecins Sans Frontières in Australia.
After an incubation period of about 2 to 21 days, the virus can cause headaches, severe fevers and muscle pain.
As the disease progresses, it can then lead to haemorrhagic fevers, which cause internal and external bleeding, for example bloody diarrhoea and bleeding from the nose.
How is Ebola treated?
Ebola has no known cure and there are currently no vaccines or specific treatments. Several vaccines are being tested, but none are available for clinical use.
Dr Schaefer says the only thing doctors can do is treat the patient symptomatically and isolate them to prevent the further spread of disease. By doing so, doctors are able to reduce Ebola's very high mortality rate.
"There is no specific curative treatment, like an antibiotic. So what we can do is ensure that they’re not suffering, replace fluids that they’re losing," she explains.
"And at the same time, make sure the community is protected, which means that any patients that arrive in our facilities are put out in isolation tents."
"On top of that we have to be careful with regards to healthcare providers, that they are correctly protected and wearing everything from goggles, gloves, aprons, boots in order not to get infected themselves."
The few patients who do recover are disinfected in a chlorine shower and given new clothes before being released from isolation.
Health workers then explain to local communities that the person is no longer contagious and in fact now has immunity to the virus.
Is there a way to prevent or reduce the risk of Ebola?
As there is no specific treatment for Ebola, people need to be quarantined immediately to contain the spread of the disease.
"As soon as you identify one case, you start isolating and containing the disease from spreading," Dr Schaefer says.
The World Health Organisation says raising community awareness of the disease and how it’s spread is another important way to reduce the transfer of Ebola.
It’s also crucial that anyone who’s died from Ebola is properly and safely buried to help contain the disease further.
How common is the disease?
According to the World Health Organisation, Ebola first occurred in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ebola is rare, but when it occurs, it can cause up to 90 per cent of infected patients to die.
"It’s not a common disease, but whenever and wherever it occurs, it is an emergency," says Dr Schaefer from Médecins Sans Frontières. "Therefore we have to act rapidly."
This interactive shows how the virus has spread in the latest outbreak, and which countries have been affected.
Watch Dateline's stories on the Ebola epidemic:
