Ebola scare has again resurfaced globally. Our prayer is that it will not find its ugly way to Nigeria this time around, knowing how tragic and disruptive it was in 2014. While one further prays that the scourge be defeated soon where it is ravaging the polity, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it has found a place in our outline today based on a peculiar grammatical feature it harbours. Unlike many other common nouns, ‘Ebola’ is a word that should always begin with a capital letter.
This means that whether it starts a clause/sentence or it is in the middle or at the end, whether it is a noun or an adjective, it should always begin with the upper case:
Ebola is a contagious disease.
He said Ebola was a contagious disease.
About 12 years ago, he survived Ebola.
The Ebola outbreak in the DRC has put the health sector on the alert. (Even as an adjective, it begins with the upper case.)
So, it is wrong to start the word with a small letter:
He said ebola was a contagious disease. (Wrong)
He identified one of the most contagious diseases as ebola. (Wrong)
Proper or common noun?
Ordinarily, ‘Ebola’ is supposed to be a common noun that should start with a small letter—unless when it starts a sentence. It is supposed to be like malaria, measles, headache, or monkeypox, which starts with the upper case only when it starts the clause:
Malaria is a widespread disease in Africa.
The conference centres on malaria.
Monkeypox is a recurrent disease in Nigeria.
The man is suffering from monkeypox.
‘Ebola’s’ case is, however, different because it is a disease named after a geographical location. The fact is that many diseases, pathogens, and psychological syndromes are named after the people who discovered them or the geographic locations where they were first identified. When named after such people, they are called eponyms. They are toponyms when the latter is the case. In the case of Ebola Virus, it is named after the Ebola River in the DRC, near where the virus was first identified in 1976.
Courtesy of study.com, below is a list of other nouns in this category, all of them beginning with capital letters:
Alzheimer’s Disease: Named after German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, who first described the disease in 1906.
Parkinson’s Disease: Named after English apothecary Dr. James Parkinson, who published An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in 1817.
Huntington’s Disease: Named after American physician Dr. George Huntington, who accurately described the hereditary disorder in 1872.
Crohn’s Disease: Named after American gastroenterologist Dr. Burrill B. Crohn, who first described the inflammatory bowel condition in 1932 alongside two colleagues.
Lyme Disease: Named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut, where a cluster of arthritis cases in children was recognized in 1975.
West Nile Virus: Named after the West Nile district of Uganda, where the virus was isolated in 1937.
Marburg Virus: Named after the city of Marburg, Germany, where the first outbreak occurred in 1967 among laboratory workers.
Lassa Fever: Named after the town of Lassa, Nigeria, where the virus was first documented in 1969.
