The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on Saturday — the gravest designation in global health, placing this outbreak in the same extraordinary category as COVID-19, the 2009 flu pandemic, and the West African Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people. The declaration came hours after two unrelated confirmed cases were reported in Kampala, Uganda's capital of over 3 million people, and a further confirmed case emerged in Kinshasa — DRC's capital more than 1,000 kilometres from the outbreak's origin.
The virus at the centre of this outbreak is the Bundibugyo strain — a rare and particularly alarming species of Ebola for one critical reason: there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics. The vaccines that have been used to successfully contain past Ebola outbreaks (including the Merck vaccine deployed during the 2018–2020 North Kivu disaster) only work against the Zaire strain. Against Bundibugyo, health workers and communities are essentially defenceless beyond isolation, barrier nursing, and contact tracing.
As of Saturday May 17, Africa CDC has confirmed 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths — all concentrated initially in the Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones of Ituri Province in eastern DRC, and in Bunia, the provincial capital. But Imperial College London's School of Public Health warned on Friday that these numbers "may reflect only a fraction of actual cases." The outbreak has likely been spreading undetected for weeks or months, they noted — a conclusion supported by the unusually high sample positivity rate: when DRC's national lab (INRB) tested 20 samples, 13 came back positive. That is not the pattern of a contained, newly ignited fire. It is the signature of a blaze already well underway.
Ituri Province is one of the most challenging environments on earth for disease response. It is remote, with poor road networks. It is actively contested by armed groups including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamic State-linked militant group that killed at least 69 people in an Ituri attack last week alone. The province shares borders with Uganda and is within reach of South Sudan. Mongwalu is a mining town with high population mobility — miners travel constantly between sites, carry cash, and move across borders. That mobility is exactly how disease spreads.
The situation is further complicated by the collapse of American global health infrastructure. In past DRC Ebola outbreaks, USAIDprovided critical surge funding — including $11.5 million during the 2021 outbreak. The Trump administration's gutting of USAID in early 2025 has left a significant funding gap. CDC acting director Jay Bhattacharya said on Friday that the U.S. remained "absolutely committed" to helping, but acknowledged his agency was only informed of the outbreak's scale "yesterday." Four healthcare workers have already died from suspected Ebola in the affected area — a warning sign that infection prevention in health facilities is already failing.
Africa CDC convened an emergency high-level coordination meetingon May 16 with health authorities from DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan, alongside WHO, UNICEF, and the U.S. CDC. The challenge before them is stark: contain a lethal, vaccine-resistant virus in an active war zone with degraded international support, before it travels further on the backs of miners, traders, and the displaced.