Significance Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) is a viral pathogen of significant global health concern best exemplified by more than 28,000 human infections during the recent West African epidemic. Examining immunity in EBOV disease survivors has been historically difficult due to the occurrence of only small outbreaks in remote regions of central Africa. Consequently, little data exist describing EBOV-specific T cell responses during human infection. We examined virus-specific CD8 ⁺ T cell immunity in 32 Sierra Leonean survivors of the 2013–2016 epidemic. CD8 ⁺ T cells against the nucleoprotein dominated the EBOV-specific responses in this group, while a minority of individuals harbored memory CD8 ⁺ T cells against the EBOV-GP. Our data have implications in designing EBOV vaccines that can elicit cell-mediated immunity in a large group of individuals.