The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo and into Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on Saturday, warning that the virus may have infected far more people than official figures suggest and that the risk of regional spread is significant.
The declaration, the WHO’s most serious alarm short of a pandemic designation, was triggered by an outbreak centred on Congo’s eastern Ituri Province that has produced at least 246 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths across three health zones, including Bunia, the provincial capital, and the gold-mining towns of Mongwalu and Rwampara. Eight cases have been laboratory-confirmed.
The strain responsible is the Bundibugyo virus, a species of Ebola for which there are no approved drugs or vaccines, a fact that alarmed health officials described in stark terms.
“Currently, I’m on panic mode because people are dying,” Dr. Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told Sky News. “I don’t have medicines. I don’t have a vaccine to support countries.”
The outbreak crossed an international border before the emergency was declared. Two laboratory-confirmed cases were reported in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, on Friday and Saturday. Both individuals who had travelled from the DRC.
One of them, a 59-year-old Congolese man, died. Ugandan officials said his body had been returned to Congo. The two cases appeared to have no link to each other, a detail that deepened concern among epidemiologists.
A confirmed case has also been reported in Goma, the eastern Congolese city currently under the control of M23 rebels, according to the AFP news agency. An earlier report of a confirmed case in Kinshasa was subsequently corrected: retesting by Congo’s national biomedical research institute found that individual negative for Bundibugyo virus.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Saturday of “significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread” of the outbreak. The agency cited a high positivity rate among early samples — eight confirmed positives from just 13 samples collected across multiple areas — as evidence that the outbreak was likely larger than current numbers indicated.
At least four healthcare workers have died with symptoms consistent with viral haemorrhagic fever, raising concerns about transmission within health facilities.
A virus with no vaccine and a lethal history
Ebola was first identified in 1976 in what is now the DRC, and the country has since recorded 17 outbreaks. The deadliest, between 2018 and 2020, killed nearly 2,300 people. Across Africa over the past 50 years, the virus has claimed approximately 15,000 lives.
The Bundibugyo strain, one of three species of Ebola that cause outbreaks in humans, has killed roughly 30 percent of those infected in previous outbreaks. Vaccines exist for the Zaire species of Ebola, the strain behind most major outbreaks, but not for Bundibugyo. The WHO said it was calling for clinical trials to accelerate the development of candidate therapeutics and vaccines.
The virus spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids. Early symptoms — fever, muscle pain, fatigue, headache, sore throat — are followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, and in severe cases, internal and external bleeding. Symptoms appear between two and 21 days after infection.
Why containment is difficult
The WHO identified a convergence of factors making this outbreak especially difficult to control. Ituri Province is in a zone of chronic insecurity and humanitarian crisis. Population movement between the affected areas and neighbouring countries is high.
The outbreak is centred on urban and semi-urban settings rather than remote villages, increasing the speed at which the virus can move. A large network of informal health facilities, where infection prevention standards are difficult to enforce, compounds the risk.
All countries bordering the DRC were designated high-risk for further spread.
The WHO urged the DRC and Uganda to activate national emergency operation centres, scale up contact tracing, enforce strict isolation of confirmed cases, and implement exit screening at airports, seaports, and major land crossings. Confirmed cases were ordered not to travel until two consecutive tests, taken at least 48 hours apart, returned negative results.
The WHO also issued an explicit instruction to countries outside the affected region: do not close borders or restrict trade.
“Such measures are usually implemented out of fear and have no basis in science,” the agency said, warning that travel bans push movement to unmonitored crossings, increasing rather than reducing the risk of spread.
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