system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is Ebola so successful this time around?

Ebola has appeared many times, killing less than 100 people each time, and then it is gone.  Why is it killing so many more people today?  Is this a new strain with better propagation characteristics? What has changed?
gpt
Africa has changed, not Ebola.  There are now more than a billion people in Africa, in the 80's, less than half that.  With more people packed into bigger cities and more people pushing out into the rural areas, and with faster transportation between the bush and the cities, it was only a matter of time before Ebola got out of a small isolated community and into a major population center.  That's what happened this time, and that's why the epidemic is killing more people.  It's reaching more people.