Die Welt ist auf Ebola vorbereitet. Nur nicht dieses Ebola.

*Governments and drugmakers spent years building Ebola defenses after the 2014 crisis. A rare strain now spreading in Congo is exposing their limits.*

*Jason Gale for Bloomberg News*

More than a decade after surviving Ebola, Craig Spencer still thinks about the isolation ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

The emergency physician became New York City’s first — and only — Ebola patient in 2014 after returning from Guinea, where he treated people during the West Africa epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and reached London, Dallas and several other major cities around the world. Officials closed a Brooklyn bowling alley he had visited and traced subway contacts across Manhattan as fear spread through the city, though no secondary infections were detected.

This week, another American doctor brought those memories rushing back. A missionary surgeon who caught Ebola in eastern Congo was evacuated to Germany, reviving fears over a virus the world has spent years trying to tame.

“What’s it like to have Ebola?” Spencer says people still ask him. “It sucks. What do you want me to say?”

For Spencer, now an associate professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health, the latest outbreak is unsettling for another reason. The culprit is the rare Bundibugyo strain — a form of Ebola with no approved vaccine or antibody treatment.

That has exposed an uncomfortable truth a decade after the West Africa epidemic triggered a revolution in global preparedness. Governments, drugmakers and health agencies spent years developing vaccines, rapid diagnostic tests, surveillance systems and emergency-response plans. Yet the epidemic now unfolding in eastern Congo suggests many of those gains were built around defending against the Zaire strain — the deadliest and most common form of Ebola — rather than preparing sufficiently for other types.

[Read the full essay here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-05-22/how-years-of-ebola-preparation-left-congo-uganda-unprepared-for-bundibugyo?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3OTQ3MjEwMSwiZXhwIjoxNzgwMDc2OTAxLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJURkZHVTJLR0lGU1cwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEMzU0MUJFQjhBQUY0QkUwQkFBOUQzNkI3QjlCRjI4OCJ9.0eo6UTRbe-0M_ekNSsOTGoiNl9Vm59ggJQOjwth8O-c)

We’re not getting fooled twice

Rest easy everyone, I’m sure Trump will deploy the Penis Extension Doctor to be in charge of Ebola as well as Hanta.

Bundibugyo ebolavirus is a distinct species within the genus Ebolavirus that was first identified during an outbreak in Bundibugyo District, Uganda, from 2007-2008. This species represents one of four ebolaviruses known to cause disease in humans, alongside Zaire, Sudan, and Taï Forest ebolaviruses. 

Bundibugyo ebolavirus causes a significantly lower case fatality rate compared to other pathogenic ebolaviruses. The case fatality rate ranges from 25-40%, substantially lower than Zaire ebolavirus (80%) and Sudan ebolavirus (50%).  During the 2007-2008 Uganda outbreak, 56 laboratory-confirmed cases were identified with a case fatality rate of approximately 25%. 

Source: OpenEvidence, which pulled from Lancet and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23285243/