More than 220 people have died and over 1,000 suspected cases have been confirmed since Congo declared an Ebola outbreak on May 15, exposing how communities dependent on wild meat for survival face deadly health risks amid inadequate public health infrastructure and education. The World Health Organization suspects the true scale is far larger than reported, as the virus appears to have spread undetected for weeks in eastern Congo, a region already devastated by armed violence and mass displacement.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola with no approved medicines or vaccines, leaving affected communities without critical medical interventions. Experts warn that the outbreak highlights the dangerous intersection of poverty, food insecurity, and zoonotic disease transmission in one of the world's most vulnerable regions.
The Human Cost of Food Insecurity
For many in Congo and across Central and West Africa, wild meat represents not a choice but a necessity—the primary source of animal protein for communities with limited alternatives. The yearly extraction rate of wild meat from the Congo Basin reaches an estimated 4.5 million tons, according to the Center for International Forestry Research. At Kinshasa's Masina Market, vendors like Charles Ntanga make their living selling wild meat, with a kilogram of giant rodent costing about $17. "We make our lives through this business," Ntanga said.
Outbreaks are believed to start when the virus spills over from infected animals such as fruit bats into humans. These cross-species infections often occur when people handle and eat wild meat, experts say. Although Ebola is generally not spread by food, cases in Africa have been associated with hunting, butchering and processing meat from infected animals, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
Systemic Barriers to Prevention
Dr. Tolbert Geewleh Nyenswah of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized the need for comprehensive public health approaches. "Once there is human, animal and environment interface, we have these kinds of outbreaks on a frequent level," he said. "And this is why one health approach in dealing with virus outbreaks is important, because we still interact with the bats, and our hunters are still killing monkeys, and we are close to the environment."
Yet structural challenges impede prevention efforts. Dr. Misaki Wayengera, a microbiologist who advises Uganda's Ministry of Health on epidemics, noted that since Ebola outbreaks happen only sporadically in communities that regularly eat wild meat, some people "don't believe the linkage" and others are "totally ignorant" of the health threat. "It is very difficult to change some of these core practices," he said.
Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, founder of the Uganda-based Conservation Through Public Health group, said public health campaigners need to step up education campaigns on how Ebola starts and is spread among communities that face recurring outbreaks. People need to be told that "eating meat from an unknown source, or a dead animal, is a no-no," Kalema-Zikusoka said. "It's a very cultural thing."
A Pattern of Recurring Crises
Ebola, named for a tributary of the Congo River, was first discovered 50 years ago in simultaneous outbreaks in Congo and present-day South Sudan. The Ebola virus is responsible for 17 outbreaks in Congo and many others elsewhere in the region. The deadliest outbreak, in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, infected an estimated 28,000 people and killed more than 11,300.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, which studied the Ebola risk stemming from the eating and handling of wild meat after West Africa's epidemic, animal-to-human spillovers of Ebola are rare, but "their consequences are nonetheless disastrous." Once Ebola has infected one person, the virus then spreads through close contact with sick or deceased patients' bodily fluids, such as sweat, blood, feces or vomit. Health workers without sufficient protective gear are seen as highly vulnerable.
While Congolese authorities have prohibited hunting endangered wildlife, including great apes sent to the brink of extinction by poachers, there is no blanket ban on the wildlife trade and illegal hunting persists for totemic creatures like the bonobo. Some fruit bats are believed to be natural hosts of the viruses that cause Ebola, according to the WHO. Yet bats are known to be a delicacy in many parts of Central and West Africa.
Why This Matters:
This outbreak underscores how communities facing poverty and food insecurity bear disproportionate health risks when public health infrastructure, education, and economic alternatives remain inadequate. The absence of approved treatments for the Bundibugyo virus strain leaves the most vulnerable populations without critical medical protections. The pattern of recurring outbreaks—17 in Congo alone—demonstrates the need for sustained investment in public health education, food security programs, and comprehensive "one health" approaches that address the interconnection between human, animal, and environmental health. Without coordinated international support and domestic capacity-building, communities dependent on wild meat will continue facing catastrophic disease outbreaks while struggling to meet basic nutritional needs. The crisis also highlights how armed conflict and displacement compound public health emergencies, creating conditions where diseases spread undetected and response efforts face severe obstacles.