What is Ebola ?

Ebola virus disease is caused by the Orthoebolavirus zairense species. 

It is a Zoonotic Disease / Zoonotic diseases (or zoonoses) are infectious illnesses caused by pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi that are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and humans.

It was first discovered in 1976 during outbreaks in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan (now South Sudan), with the Zaire outbreak killing 88% of the 318 infected individuals at the time.

There have been numerous outbreaks since, and the current one in DRC in Ituri is the 17th outbreak of the Ebola virus.

See the map below from the USA CDC to show previous outbreak information. https://www.cdc.gov/ebola/outbreaks/index.html

What makes this current outbreak (2026) worrying, is that there are more than 200 people with the virus so far, and contact tracing needs to be carried out. Sadly 80 people have already died.