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In 1972, four years before the Ebola virus had a name - Dr Tom Cairns was a missionary doctor in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. He became ill after cutting his finger whilst performing an autopsy on a patient who died from an unknown illness.

In 1976, two simultaneous outbreaks of the now named deadly Ebola virus in Sudan and Zaire took hundreds of lives in a short period of time. The Centre for Disease Control, the CDC, began testing its medical staff. All staff tested negative for the Ebola antibody except one… Dr Cairns. That's when he knew, he'd survived the Ebola Virus.

(Photo: Dr Tom Cairns at work in 1970s Zaire. Credit: Dr Tom Cairns)