That's true in rural communities where it wipes out a village before it can be spread to a neighboring community. In an urban area it could really wreak havoc.
Le Pen was not quite correct in that it's not really the "right" disease for that in our culture - contagion is usually through direct contact with infected blood or other body fluids, although it can be transmitted on needles and apparently by sexual contact (the "donor" has to have survived it first). The nastier urban epidemics tend to be water-borne (cholera) or aerosol (influenza, smallpox, measles, pneumonic plague), where contagion can take advantage of population density.
Not that the stuff isn't incredible deadly once you catch it. The people at worst hazard are care-givers and people preparing corpses for burial. That, in Africa, tends to be family members. Here and there, my undying admiration goes to doctors and nurses who maintain their composure and continue their duties in the presence of this stuff.