As of May 30, 2026, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have recorded 263 confirmed cases of Ebola caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, according to Dr. Jean Kaseya, Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). Forty-three people have died from confirmed infections, and more than 1,100 suspected cases remain under investigation across both countries. The outbreak, centred in the DRC’s Ituri Province in the country’s northeast, has spread across at least three provinces and reached Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
Dr. Kaseya, writing in an op-ed published in the Financial Times on Sunday, said national incident management systems must be activated rapidly and that investments in pandemic preparedness must become permanent fixtures rather than emergency measures. He warned that the outbreak is outpacing the international response — a concern echoed by health officials and aid workers on the ground, who told Reuters they lack even basic supplies such as masks.
“This outbreak is not a DRC issue, it is a regional issue,” Dr. Kaseya said at an earlier ministerial briefing. “Those who believe that it is a DRC issue will be surprised, as it was during COVID. We need to take it as a regional, even continental issue, and deal with that.”
The funding picture has deteriorated sharply. Dr. Kaseya told a press conference that initial international pledges of $500 million dropped to $290 million within days. “We cannot afford to stop this outbreak without resources,” he said. Estimated response costs stand at approximately $264 million for operations in the DRC and Uganda alone, with an additional $54 million required to bolster preparedness in neighbouring high-risk countries, including South Sudan, according to preliminary figures cited by Africa CDC.
The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on May 17, 2026, after WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus consulted the health ministers of both affected countries and received notification from Africa CDC. Speaking at a virtual ministerial briefing on May 25, Dr. Tedros said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed” of the outbreak, adding that WHO had upgraded its national-level risk assessment for the DRC from high to very high that week.
Dr. Roger Kamba, DRC’s Minister of Health, acknowledged that insecurity and laboratory limitations delayed early containment. “The delay was due to the fact that the laboratory in Bunia could not detect the Bundibugyo strain, and it was necessary to send the samples to Kinshasa,” he told a coordination meeting convened by Africa CDC on May 25, 2026. Samples from Ituri Province had to travel more than a thousand miles to the capital for confirmation, according to humanitarian workers cited by CNN.
Health officials confirmed that the first death linked to this outbreak occurred on April 20 in Ituri Province, weeks before the outbreak was officially declared on May 15. That gap allowed the virus to spread undetected through communities already dealing with displacement, armed conflict, and high cross-border movement. Ituri Province shares borders with Uganda and South Sudan — both factors that health authorities have cited as drivers of transmission risk.
Uganda confirmed nine cases as of May 29, including at least three linked to travel from the DRC and one death — a 59-year-old Congolese man who died in Kampala. His body was repatriated to the DRC, Uganda’s media office said. A second patient was receiving hospital treatment in Kampala as of late May.
The Bundibugyo strain carries no approved vaccine and no specific treatment, which has added urgency to containment efforts. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) estimated the strain’s fatality rate at between 25 and 40 percent and said it was scaling up its response in Ituri Province. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a Level 3 Travel Health Notice for the DRC on May 15 — its highest advisory level — and a Level 1 notice for Uganda. The CDC has deployed roughly 100 staff in Uganda and nearly 30 in the DRC, according to Dr. Satish Pillai, the agency’s incident manager for the Ebola response.
The World Bank Group confirmed it is drawing on health preparedness financing to support frontline response in both countries, with a focus on surveillance, cross-border monitoring, and protecting health workers.
Regional and Global Impact
Africa CDC has warned that the DRC outbreak represents the third-largest Ebola event since the virus was first identified in 1976, and officials have flagged South Sudan as a high-risk neighbour requiring immediate preparedness investment. Uganda has shut border crossings with the DRC in response. Several western governments imposed travel restrictions on the affected region, a move that Dr. Kaseya publicly rejected as unacceptable, arguing the measures would hinder the response without meaningfully reducing international risk. The U.S. has rerouted air passengers from the DRC, South Sudan, and Uganda to four designated airports — Washington-Dulles, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, Houston Bush Intercontinental, and New York JFK — for health screening.
Background
This is the 17th recorded Ebola outbreak in the DRC since the virus was first identified there in 1976. The previous DRC outbreak, caused by a different strain, was declared over in December 2025. The Bundibugyo strain was first identified in Uganda in 2007 and has historically carried lower fatality rates than the Ebola virus strain responsible for the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people. The current outbreak is concentrated in Ituri, Nord-Kivu, and Sud-Kivu provinces — areas characterised by armed conflict, population displacement driven by mining activity, and dense cross-border movement. Local laboratory infrastructure in Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri, was unable to detect the Bundibugyo strain, meaning early samples required transport to Kinshasa for analysis.
What Happens Next
Africa CDC has called on all affected and at-risk countries to activate national incident management systems and says it is maintaining a high-level coordination structure with the DRC, Uganda, South Sudan, WHO, UNICEF, and donor partners. WHO says it will continue to assess risk levels and update its emergency status as case counts evolve. Direct Relief has prepared a $2.5 million emergency medical shipment, including protective equipment and diagnostics, for a clinic in Goma, eastern DRC. Preliminary estimates for a joint response plan covering both countries and regional preparedness total approximately $318 million, though Africa CDC has noted these figures remain subject to revision. Clinical trials of vaccine candidates for the Bundibugyo strain are ongoing, according to WHO, though no approved product is currently available for deployment.
