How Ebola Works

In 2026 eastern Congo is fighting its largest Ebola outbreak on record, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, one with no approved vaccine. This film explains the fundamentals: how Ebola was found in 1976, what the thread-shaped virus is made of, how it slips into a cell using a cholesterol-carrying protein called NPC1, how it silences the body's alarm, why it spreads through contact with body fluids rather than through the air, and how contact tracing, safe burials and ring vaccination break the chain. Health information here is education, not medical advice.

The thread and the ring

Why Ebola is so deadly, and what finally stops it.

A river’s name

Two outbreaks in the same year, hundreds of kilometres apart.

Seven genes on a thread

The simplest machine that can kill a person.

A family of viruses

“Ebola” is really several related viruses.

Swallowed whole

The cell lets the virus in by mistake.

A lock inside the cell

The door Ebola needs is not on the outside.

The factory

Thousands of new threads bud from one cell.

Cutting the alarm

Ebola attacks the very cells meant to raise the alarm.

From fever to shock

Why fluids and early care save lives.

Out of the forest

Every outbreak starts with a jump from an animal.

Touch, not air

Ebola spreads through body fluids, from the sick and the dead.

One number

Above one, an outbreak grows. Below one, it dies out.

Twenty-one days

Old-fashioned detective work still beats Ebola.

The ring

Vaccinate the contacts, and the contacts of contacts.

No vaccine yet

Why Bundibugyo is harder to stop.

The thread and the ring

A virus with seven genes, and a chain made of people.

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