On October 17th, one of my favourite podcasts, BBC's 'Inside Science' with Dr Adam Rutherford, featured a segment on how models can help predict future Ebola outbreaks. The segment featured the work of Professor Katie Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at University College London.
Adapted from Redding et al (2019). 'Present' represents current prevalence of Ebola. 'Future' shows projected prevalence in 2070 when climatic, land use, and population changes are considered. Scale indicates severity.
The podcast gave a good overview of the types of information needed to design these models, including factors such as population grows, land use change or how climate change may affect the virus's host's range . When questioned about what we could do to restrict future outbreaks of Ebola, Prof. Jones mentioned reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a practical step that could be taken.
I would highly recommend listening to the podcast, available here. You'll also find the final segment of the podcast is about malaria, so provides some biological background to past posts about the disease.