An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has killed more than 80 people, as health authorities warned there is currently no vaccine for the strain responsible for the latest crisis. The World Health Organization on Sunday declared the outbreak an international public health emergency.
According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever had been recorded as of Saturday.
The Geneva-based WHO said the outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern” — the second-highest alert level under international health regulations.
However, the global health agency stopped short of declaring a full pandemic emergency, the highest alert category introduced in 2024, while warning that the true scale of infections and geographic spread remains unclear.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described the rapid spread of the disease as “extremely concerning” and said it was preparing a large-scale emergency response.
“The Bundibugyo strain has no vaccine and no specific treatment,” DR Congo’s Health Minister, Samuel-Roger Kamba, said.
“This strain has a very high lethality rate, which can reach 50 per cent.”
The Bundibugyo strain, first identified in 2007, has already spread beyond DR Congo’s borders, with officials confirming the death of a Congolese national in neighbouring Uganda on Saturday.
Currently available Ebola vaccines target only the Zaire strain, first identified in 1976, which carries an even higher fatality rate of between 60 and 90 per cent.
Health authorities confirmed the latest outbreak on Friday in Ituri province in northeastern DR Congo, which borders Uganda and South Sudan.
“We’ve been seeing people die for the past two weeks,” local civil society representative Isaac Nyakulinda told AFP by phone.
“There is nowhere to isolate the sick. They are dying at home, and their bodies are being handled by their family members.”
According to Kamba, the outbreak’s index case was a nurse who arrived at a health facility in Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri, on April 24 with symptoms consistent with Ebola.
Symptoms of the disease include fever, vomiting and internal or external bleeding.
“The number of cases and deaths we are seeing in such a short timeframe, combined with the spread across several health zones and now across the border, is extremely concerning,” said Trish Newport, MSF’s Emergency Programme Manager, who is mobilising medical teams and supplies to the affected region.
Efforts to contain the outbreak are being hampered by major logistical challenges in DR Congo, a vast country of more than 100 million people with poor transport and communications infrastructure.
The current outbreak is the 17th recorded Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, and officials have warned of a high risk of further regional spread.
“There are significant uncertainties about the true number of infected persons and the geographic spread,” the WHO said.
The organisation added that the high positivity rate among initial samples, confirmed cases in two countries, and increasing reports of suspected infections “all point towards a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported.”
Ebola has killed around 15,000 people across Africa over the past five decades despite advances in vaccines and treatment. The previous outbreak in DR Congo, recorded last August in the central region, killed at least 34 people before it was declared over in December.
The deadliest outbreak in the country occurred between 2018 and 2020, when nearly 2,300 people lost their lives.
Believed to have originated in bats, Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids or blood from an infected person, who becomes contagious only after symptoms appear. The virus can cause severe bleeding, organ failure and death, while its incubation period can last up to 21 days.
