| Summary: | The article discusses the recent Ebola epidemic, declared by the World Health Organization as “a Public Health Emergency of international concern”. From the unicausal explanation and biologicist point of view of the health-disease, epidemic would be explained by characteristics that determine the high pathogenicity of the virus; however, before this statement arises the question: why the epidemic originates in the poorest and/or most unequal and inequitable countries in Africa? For this reason, the main features of the theory of social determination of the health-disease process are shown, afterwards the last outbreak of Ebola is analysed and its appearance is explained as caused by the capitalist and neoliberal model that by means of private enterprise and its invasion of the territory of the poorest countries in the African continent, has displaced the native population to ecosystem uninhabited by humans where the transmitter vector has lived for years. A reection on the unfavourable conditions of the African population is performed (sanitary systems dismantled by structural reforms that do not allow priority assistance to those infected). It is concluded that both the current outbreak as previous ones, have as fundamental cause, the uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources of the region, which thoroughly accelerates poverty levels, the asymmetric distribution of property and power, giving rise to the occurrence of forms of oppression that deepen social inequality.
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