2026 DRC Ebola Outbreak

About this episode

This episode discusses the 2026 DRC Ebola outbreak, healthcare challenges, and related viruses.

This week we talk about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, malaria, and healthcare infrastructure. We also discuss militants, Uganda, and the Bundibugyo virus. Recommended Book: We Should Get Together by Kat Vellos Transcript Ebola, which is more formally called Ebola Virus Disease or Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, is caused by an infection by a type of RNA virus called an orthoebolavirus. There are six known species of orthoebolavirus, and four of them have at some point infected and caused illness in humans. Those four are the ebola virus, sometimes called the Zaire ebolavirus, which historically has been the strain responsible for the biggest, most devastating outbreaks of this disease, the Sudan virus, the Taï Forest virus, and the Bundibugyo virus, the latter three each causing a variant of the disease that carries the same name. The other two orthoebolavirus species that we know of, the Reston virus and the Bombali virus, have been known to infect animals, but have not, at this point at least, been known to make the jump to human hosts. Ebola symptoms vary a bit between specific viruses and between hosts and infection conditions, but in general those who are afflicted by ebola…

People in this episode

Host: Colin Wright

Topics covered

• Ebola
• healthcare infrastructure
• malaria
• militants
• Bundibugyo virus

Keywords

• Ebola
• malaria
• healthcare
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Bundibugyo virus
• Uganda

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: We Should Get Together

Places: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda

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