A health worker takes a woman’s temperature as part of Ebola screening efforts in Goma. | bloomberg
Jul 18, 2026
Some doctors call it “walking Ebola” — symptoms of the rare Bundibugyo strain appear to worsen slowly, leaving patients sick enough to spread the virus but not so unwell to stop them moving through their communities.
The pattern emerging in the Democratic Republic of Congo resonated with virologist Corri Levine, who devoted her doctoral research to Bundibugyo years before it caused the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. Studying the virus in a biocontainment laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Levine found it replicated more slowly than the Zaire strain responsible for a devastating epidemic that swept West Africa a decade ago.
“Walking Ebola” was “an ‘aha’ moment for me,” Levine said. “If it’s growing slower in the person, you might start having some symptoms, but not enough to make you feel so crummy that you can’t move. It’s this longer, prolonged disease course.”
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