Marburg virus in the context of "Filoviruses"

Orthoebolavirus zairense or Zaire ebolavirus, more commonly known as Ebola virus (/iˈboʊlə, ɪ-/; EBOV), is one of six known species within the genus Ebolavirus. Four of the six known ebolaviruses, including EBOV, cause a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and other mammals, known as Ebola virus disease (EVD). Ebola virus has caused the majority of human deaths from EVD, and was the cause of the 2013–2016 epidemic in western Africa, which resulted in at least 28,646 suspected cases and 11,323 confirmed deaths.

Ebola virus and its genus were both originally named for Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the country where it was first described, and was at first suspected to be a new "strain" of the closely related Marburg virus. The virus was renamed "Ebola virus" in 2010 to avoid confusion. Ebola virus is the single member of the species Zaire ebolavirus, which is assigned to the genus Ebolavirus, family Filoviridae, order Mononegavirales. The members of the species are called Zaire ebolaviruses. The natural reservoir of Ebola virus is believed to be bats, particularly fruit bats, and it is primarily transmitted between humans and from animals to humans through body fluids.

The bat virome is the group of viruses associated with bats. Bats host a diverse array of viruses, including all seven types described by the Baltimore classification system: (I) double-stranded DNA viruses; (II) single-stranded DNA viruses; (III) double-stranded RNA viruses; (IV) positive-sense RNA viruses; (V) negative-sense RNA viruses; (VI) positive-sense RNA viruses that replicate through a DNA intermediate; and (VII) double-stranded DNA viruses that replicate through a single-stranded RNA intermediate. The greatest share of bat-associated viruses identified as of 2020 are of type IV, in the family Coronaviridae.

Bats harbor many viruses and a few of them are zoonotic, or capable of infecting humans and causing disease, thus, are considered important emerging viruses. These zoonotic viruses include the rabies virus, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, Marburg virus, Nipah virus, and Hendra virus. While research strongly indicates that SARS-CoV-2 originated in bats, it is unknown how it was transmitted to humans, or if an intermediate host was involved. It has been speculated that bats may have a role in the ecology of Ebola virus, though this is unconfirmed. A closely-related ebolavirus, Bombali ebolavirus, has been detected in insectivorous bats. While transmission of rabies from bats to humans usually occurs from bites or scratches, most other zoonotic bat viruses are transmitted by direct contact with infected bat fluids like urine, guano, or saliva, or through contact with an infected, non-bat intermediate host. There is no firm evidence that butchering or consuming bat meat can lead to viral transmission, though this has been speculated because such activity causes aerosols that may facilitate respiratory transmission.