Quote:Chinese scientists have engineered a virus with parts of Ebola in a lab that killed a group of hamsters.

A team of researchers at Hebei Medical University used a contagious disease of livestock and added a protein found in Ebola, which allows the virus to infect cells and spread throughout the human body.

The group of hamsters that received the lethal injection 'developed severe systemic diseases similar to those observed in human Ebola patients,' including multi-organ failure,' the study shared.

One particularly horrific symptom saw the infected hamsters develop secretions in their eyes, which impaired their vision and scabbed over the surface of the eyeballs 

Ebola needs to be handled in Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) facilities which are special high security laboratories, while many are only BLS-2.

To work around this in a lower security setting, scientists used a different virus called vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which they engineered to carry part of the Ebola virus that's called glycoprotein (GP) that plays a crucial role in helping the virus enter and infect cells of its host.