It can be difficult to distinguish EVD from other infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever and meningitis. Confirmation that symptoms are caused by Ebola virus infection are made using the following investigations:

1. antibody-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)

• 2. antigen-capture detection tests
• 3. serum neutralization test
• 3. reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay
• 4. electron microscopy
• 5. virus isolation by cell culture.

Samples from patients are an extreme biohazard risk; laboratory testing on non-inactivated samples should be conducted under maximum biological containment conditions.