Ebola is of the forest

Ebola was named after a river, but in hindsight it would have been more fitting to name it after a forest. The Ebola virus lives in the deep equatorial forests of Central Africa, and can infect people who live, hunt or work in the forest or on its fringes.

The Forest Region of Guinea, where the current outbreak began, had had no known outbreaks. But it is one of several areas in Africa thought to have the right combination of forest, bats, temperature and other environmental conditions to possibly harbor the Ebola virus.