WHO alarmed by Ebola outbreak's rapid spread and vast scope

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Workers from Kanyaruchinya, in Nyiragongo territory, take part in sanitation, renovation, and leveling work at the former Ebola treatment center, in Goma on May 19, 2026. Photo by Jospin Mwisha / AFP.

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The World Health Organization on Tuesday voiced concern about the “scale and speed” of an Ebola outbreak that has killed an estimated 131 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and warned it could be lengthy.

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The UN health agency has declared the surge of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever an international health emergency and called an urgent meeting on the crisis.

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No vaccine or therapeutic treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola which is responsible for the outbreak declared in the east late last week.

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Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.

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Workers with shovels were seen digging to clear an abandoned Ebola treatment centre in the eastern city of Goma.

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“We are currently spreading sand and preparing the site to help care for people affected by Ebola virus disease,” Philippe Jamaica, who was supervising the work, said.

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Tonnes of emergency medical supplies, including infection prevention kits and tents, as well as experts have arrived in recent days, local WHO footage showed.

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With the recent cases largely concentrated in difficult-to-access areas hit by long-running conflicts, few samples have been laboratory-tested and figures are based mostly on suspected cases.

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“We have recorded roughly 131 deaths in total and we have around 513 suspected cases,” Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said on national television early Tuesday.

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“The deaths we are reporting are all the deaths we have identified in the community, without necessarily saying that they are all linked to Ebola,” he added.

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WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic”.

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Speaking from the DRC, Anne Ancia, the WHO’s representative, told reporters in Geneva that a vaccine candidate called Ervebo was among those being looked at but it was likely to take at least “two months for it to be available”.

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It could still be useful, she added, since “I don’t think that in two months we will be done with this outbreak”.

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Conflict

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The DRC’s deadliest Ebola outbreak, between 2018 and 2020, claimed nearly 2,300 lives from 3,500 cases.

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The epicentre of the new cases is in northeastern Ituri province on the border with Uganda and South Sudan.

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As a gold-mining hub, it sees people regularly crisscrossing the region and has been plagued by clashes between local militias for years.

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The virus has already spread into neighbouring provinces, as well as beyond the DRC’s borders into Uganda.

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“Unfortunately, the alert was slow to circulate within the community, because people thought it was a mystical illness, and so, as a result, the sick were not taken to the hospital,” Kamba said.

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The Ebola outbreak is the 17th in the vast central African country of more than 100 million people.

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Vaccines are only available for the Zaire strain of the disease, which has caused the biggest recorded outbreaks.

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The Bundibugyo strain has previously been responsible for outbreaks in Uganda in 2007 and in the DRC in 2012. The mortality rate was 30 to 50 percent.

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Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Tuesday urged citizens to keep “calm” and take precautions, the presidency said on X.

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Suspected cases have been reported in the commercial hub of Butembo in neighbouring North Kivu province, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the epidemic’s ground zero, Kamba said.

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Another case has been recorded in Goma, the North Kivu provincial capital, which was seized by M23 fighters in January last year.

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Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, appealed to the Rwanda-backed group to reopen the city’s airport to help combat the outbreak.

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The front line dividing the anti-governmental group and government forces runs through the provinces of North Kivu and neighbouring South Kivu.

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“Humanitarian access and coordination between the various stakeholders, particularly the parties to the conflict, could be one of the challenges for the response,” Francois Moreillon, of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the DRC, told AFP on Monday.

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He called on the armed groups to guarantee effective access, cooperation and humanitarian coordination.

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US screening

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The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has declared the outbreak a continental public health emergency.

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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies also said it had activated its highest level of emergency response.

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Tedros said that 30 cases had been confirmed to be Ebola in Ituri province.

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“Uganda has also informed WHO of two confirmed cases in the capital of Kampala, including one death among two individuals who travelled from DRC,” he said.

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Germany said on Tuesday it was readying to receive and treat a US citizen who has contracted the virus.

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American Christian NGO Serge said the patient was a doctor for the organisation who was exposed to the virus through his work.

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The United States announced it was screening air passengers from outbreak-hit areas and temporarily suspending visa services.

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It also urged citizens to avoid travel to the DRC, South Sudan and Uganda, and to reconsider travel to Rwanda.

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