New Yorker: Is Ebola Evolving Into a More Deadly Virus?
Richard Preston, author

“This July, the World Health Organization declared that an outbreak of Ebola in the provinces of Ituri and North-Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a ‘public health emergency of international concern.’ This particular strain of the virus, which first appeared in the region in 2018 and hasn’t been given a formal name — I’ll call it Kivu Ebola — is a variant of a species known as the Zaire Ebola virus. … Some virologists wonder whether Kivu Ebola could start evolving, or whether it has already started to evolve, in a way that makes it more dangerous to people — perhaps by becoming more contagious, in which case it would get much harder to control. These questions introduce a new aspect to the international emergency. … The longer the outbreak is allowed to continue, the greater the chances that Ebola will mutate, get better at spreading in humans, and vastly enlarge its circle of victims” (8/7).