Last modified on Wed 17 Mar 2021 03.02 EDT An Ebola survivor is likely to have triggered the current outbreak in Guinea, scientists have said, in a shock discovery that means the virus may remain dormant for five years. The finding, which comes after 29 cases and 13 deaths, raises fresh questions about the ability of Ebola to lurk in the body long term even while the survivor remains outwardly healthy. “This is pretty shocking,” virologist Angela Rasmussen of Georgetown University told Science magazine. “Ebolaviruses aren’t herpesviruses (which are known to cause long-lasting infections) and generally RNA viruses don’t just hang around not replicating at all.”