Antigen capture ELISA and PCR were the main tests to confirm current infection. At the time, the latter was believed to become positive one or two days earlier than the ELISA, which would be an obvious advantage to reduce in-hospital transmission between patients. On the other hand, positive PCR results repeatedly turned out to be false. This created considerable and
unnecessary anxiety in the patients and put them at avoidable risk for in-hospital transmission. Specificity of PCR needed further improvement if the method was to become an essential tool for a BSL 4 field laboratory. Five years later, PCR was the dominant test during the Marburg HF outbreak in Uige/Angola [20].