First Ebola case confirmed in DR Congo’s M23-held province

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Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe works in a laboratory at the National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB) in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 20, 2026. The World Health Organization on Tuesday voiced concern about the “scale and speed” of an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 130 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and warned it could be lengthy. The UN health agency has declared the surge of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever in the east of the country an international health emergency. No vaccine or therapeutic treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola which is responsible for the outbreak. Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century. (Photo by Hardy BOPE / AFP)

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A first Ebola case has been confirmed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province, in an area under the Rwanda-backed M23 militia’s control, the armed group’s spokesman said Thursday.

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Efforts to get a grip on the latest outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic disease, which the World Health Organization has declared an international emergency, have been hampered by the DRC’s long-running conflicts, including that between the Congolese army and the M23.

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Having seized swathes of land in the mineral-rich east with Rwanda’s help, the M23 has set up to govern for the long run in areas under its control, installing a parallel administration to the Congolese government.

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But the armed group has never had to manage the response to a serious epidemic of a disease like Ebola, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.

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According to the M23 spokesman, tests “confirm a new positive case” from the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu, which fell into M23 hands in February 2025. But the case involved a “person coming from Kisangani”, a major city in the eastern Tshopo province where no Ebola infections from the current outbreak have so far been recorded.

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AFP

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