<human>:  Where did the ebola virus originate?
<bot>: The ebola virus is a filovirus. Its name is derived from the ebola river in the Congo. The first cases of Ebola were recorded in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, there have been several outbreaks of the disease. The largest and most well-known outbreak was in 2014, when it killed over 11,000 people in West Africa.