When an outbreak of Bundibugyo virus disease erupted across the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda in May 2026, clinicians faced an urgent problem: there were no proven treatments. Two monoclonal antibodies existed for Zaire Ebola, but Bundibugyo virus is a different species—and the evidence from those other Ebolavirus treatments did not automatically translate.

Rather than wait for new drugs, researchers from the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Epidemics Research and Uganda’s Ministry of Health pursued rapid repurposing. They sequenced a clinical isolate from a recent case, mapped its mutations in the viral polymerase, and then computationally tested whether remdesivir—an antiviral already approved for COVID-19 that had shown promise against Ebola in earlier studies—could still bind effectively to this newly emerging strain. Using molecular docking and structural modeling, they found that remdesivir’s triphosphate form binds to the virus’s RNA polymerase with an affinity comparable to its activity against SARS-CoV-2, suggesting it may warrant urgent clinical evaluation during the ongoing outbreak.

The full technical analysis is available to read below.