Ebola outbreaks are growing larger because the ecological conditions that once kept the virus in check are being systematically dismantled, driven by humanity’s hunger for the minerals inside smartphones and other high-tech devices.
When Ebolavirus was first identified in 1976, outbreaks rarely exceeded a few hundred cases. That pattern has shattered. The 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic infected more than 28,600 people across ten countries on three continents. The current eruption, caused by the Bundibugyo strain, began in early May 2026 and has already produced 363 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and spread into Uganda. As of early June, the World Health Organization (WHO) had revised its counts to 321 confirmed cases and 48 deaths in the DRC, with 11 confirmed cases and one death in Uganda. The WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on May 17.
How deforestation drives the virus out of the forest
The conventional explanation for larger outbreaks points to more people and more travel. But the deeper driver is a transformed ecology. Most of the time, Ebolavirus circulates harmlessly in its animal hosts, widely understood to be bats. In the DRC, which contains 60% of the world’s second-largest rainforest, virus-laden bats typically reach only a few people in remote locations, causing small outbreaks that quickly fade. People who live alongside these bats can develop immunity: one survey found that nearly 20% of forest-dwelling people in Gabon carry immune protections against Ebolavirus.
Cutting down the trees that bats live in ruptures that balance. The bats do not disappear; they crowd into the remaining forest fragments, pushing them closer to humans and raising the odds of contact with infected blood, saliva and excreta. A 2025 analysis found that for every 1% increase in deforestation in Central Africa, the incidence of malaria and Ebola spikes by 20% to 40%. The 2014 epidemic was preceded by the loss of 85% of forest cover in the south-west corner of Guinea, where the outbreak began. The current outbreak of Bundibugyo fits the same pattern: a record loss of 1.5 million acres of Congo Basin rainforest in 2024, according to satellite data analysed by Global Forest Watch.
A CDC-led study using two decades of satellite data identified forest loss and fragmentation as among the strongest predictors of Ebola virus spillover from animals to humans, describing deforestation as a leading indicator of outbreaks. Research has also shown that outbreaks along the limits of the rainforest biome are significantly associated with forest losses in the preceding two years.
The mineral hunters who plunge deep into the forest
Human pressure on forests is nothing new. But in the DRC a new driver has emerged: artisanal mining for minerals such as gold, coltan and cobalt, sought after by a global supply chain hungry for the “3TG” minerals — tungsten, tin, tantalum and gold — that go into semiconductors, smartphones and other tech products. Global demand for these minerals is expected to triple in coming years.
Artisanal mining employs an estimated two million people in the DRC, including more than 380,000 in the east. The country is the world’s top producer of cobalt and Africa’s largest producer of copper, but political instability and armed conflict mean most of its mineral wealth — valued at $24 trillion — remains untapped by commercial mining. The result is a booming informal sector. Malte Ladewig, an economist at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, found that artisanal mining has become a “widespread livelihood activity” involving over 30% of local households in eastern DRC.
The hunt for minerals alters Ebola’s ecology in a uniquely dangerous way. When people expand farms, they push into forests from the edges. Miners, by contrast, plunge deep into the forest’s core, far from settlements and agricultural markets. Rising mineral prices attract people from all over, including those who lack the acquired immunity of long-term forest dwellers. Far from towns, they sustain themselves by hunting, bringing human bodies and animal bodies into intimate contact. If their prey includes animals harbouring Ebolaviruses such as Bundibugyo, any pathogen they pick up can spread easily in makeshift mining camps with poor sanitation and little health infrastructure.
Ladewig’s research also quantified the deforestation caused by mining: within 5 km of a mining site, the onset of mining leads to an additional 4% of forest loss after ten years. The indirect deforestation from farming and settlements that spring up around mines is estimated to be 28 times larger than the area directly cleared, accounting for at least 6.6% of total deforestation in eastern DRC.
A mining town at the epicentre
Whether artisanal mining sparked the current epidemic is not known for certain. But the first cluster of fatal cases emerged in Mongbwalu in north-eastern DRC, a swelling mining town dotted with unregulated gold mines. Satellite data show that last year, as the price of gold doubled in response to US tariffs, the forests around Mongbwalu were sliced open, pushing a new frontier deeper into the jungle.
Matthew Hansen, a remote-sensing scientist at the University of Maryland who tracks global forest cover using satellite data from Nasa and the US Geological Survey, zoomed into Mongbwalu on his map of global forest change from 2000 to 2025. Wobbly lines of bright blue — indicating areas newly deforested in 2025 — radiated out to the west and south. “Wow,” he said. “There is a ton of mining around here. Holy shit.”
No vaccine, no easy fix
The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, first identified in 2007, has no approved vaccines or specific treatments, unlike the Zaire strain. Two vaccine candidates are in development but not yet available. Early symptoms — fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, sore throat — are non-specific, making diagnosis difficult and often confused with malaria.
The outbreak is unfolding amid insecurity, population displacement and limited humanitarian access in eastern DRC, raising fears of wider transmission. In 2018, Donald Trump suspended US rules intended to curb so-called “conflict minerals” — the 3TG minerals whose proceeds have funded armed groups and human rights abuses in the region. Last year he signed an agreement with the DRC for access to its mineral abundance in exchange for security. The effectiveness of earlier disclosure rules under the Dodd-Frank Act has been questioned; some reports suggest they may have pushed violence into informal mining sites rather than stopping it.
For people living in mineral-rich forests, the choice is between subsistence farming — plagued by erratic rainfall, declining soil fertility and conflict — and hunting for minerals. That choice drives them deeper into ecosystems that once kept Ebola at bay.
In the midst of deadly outbreaks, experts and policymakers focus on response and preparedness. But for novel pathogens such as Bundibugyo, which can elude standard tests and vaccines, no level of preparedness can stop them before they begin their exponential spread. Only a third, relatively ignored, pillar of pandemic policy can do that: preventing the broken ecologies that drive novel pathogens into human populations in the first place. That means more attention to the health of forests such as those of the Congo basin, and to how the minerals inside the smartphone in your pocket are extracted.
