The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda a public health emergency, citing a rare viral strain with no approved vaccine.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued the declaration on Sunday, May 17, 2026, designating the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) under the International Health Regulations of 2005. He stopped short of labelling it a pandemic emergency, but stressed that the outbreak carries significant local and regional risk of spread.
As of May 16, 2026, WHO had recorded eight laboratory confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths across at least three health zones in DRC’s Ituri Province, including Bunia, Rwampara and Mongbwalu. Uganda has reported two laboratory confirmed cases, including one death, in two travellers who arrived in Kampala separately from DRC on May 15 and 16. More recent CDC figures place the total at 10 confirmed and 336 suspected cases in DRC, including 88 deaths.
The outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo virus, one of four Orthoebolavirus species that cause Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD). The strain has historical fatality rates of between 25 and 50 percent according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and between 25 and 40 percent according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Unlike outbreaks driven by the Zaire ebolavirus strain, there are currently no licensed vaccines or specific therapeutics for Bundibugyo virus, leaving health workers with only supportive care as a treatment option.
Investigators believe the first suspected case was a health worker in Bunia who developed fever, haemorrhaging, vomiting and intense malaise on April 24, 2026, and later died at a local medical centre. Four health workers died within four days of each other in the early phase of the outbreak before it was formally identified. Genomic sequencing by DRC’s Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) on May 15 confirmed the virus species, and the DRC Ministry of Health officially declared the country’s 17th Ebola outbreak the same day. This is also the third recorded outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain anywhere in the world, following Uganda in 2007 to 2008 and DRC in 2012.
WHO has warned that the true scale of the outbreak is almost certainly larger than reported figures suggest. Officials pointed to a high positivity rate among initial test samples, with eight positives out of 13 collected in Rwampara health zone, alongside unusual clusters of community deaths with symptoms compatible with the disease across Ituri and neighbouring North Kivu province. The ongoing armed conflict in eastern DRC has further complicated surveillance, contact tracing and laboratory work, with insecurity already disrupting follow up of several listed contacts who later became symptomatic and died before isolation.
The Ugandan death involved an elderly Congolese man who was admitted to a private hospital in Kampala on May 11 with severe symptoms and died on May 14. Uganda’s Ministry of Health confirmed the outbreak on May 15 and has launched contact tracing alongside enhanced border screening. Uganda’s media office sought to calm public anxiety, saying there was no cause for alarm.
The United States response has intensified rapidly. The CDC has activated its Emergency Response Center and confirmed that it is supporting interagency efforts to coordinate the safe withdrawal of a small number of Americans directly affected in outbreak zones. CBS News, citing sources at an international aid organisation, reported that at least six Americans were exposed to the virus in DRC, with three considered to have had high risk contact. CDC Ebola response incident manager Satish Pillai declined to disclose individual details but described the picture as “extremely dynamic” while reaffirming that the risk to the American public remains low. On May 18, the CDC and the US Department of Homeland Security implemented enhanced travel screening and entry restrictions for travellers from affected areas.
Neighbouring countries are now treated as high risk for further spread because of heavy cross border trade and population mobility across the Great Lakes region. Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda all share borders with the affected Ituri province. The European Union has placed personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpiles on standby for deployment and is supplying detection kits to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). MSF, which is preparing to scale up its operations in Ituri, described the trajectory of the outbreak as “extremely concerning.”
For Africa, the declaration revives memories of the 2018 to 2020 outbreak in the same region, which killed 2,287 people and ranks as the second largest Ebola epidemic on record. That outbreak, caused by a different strain, unfolded against the same backdrop of armed conflict, weak health infrastructure and population displacement that complicates the current response. With no vaccine to deploy this time, WHO is urging governments to strengthen surveillance, fortify infection prevention in health facilities, accelerate research into countermeasures and reinforce community engagement before the outbreak slips further beyond the reach of containment.
