The World Health Organization announced on Thursday it is expanding Ebola diagnostic testing capacity across the Democratic Republic of Congo in partnership with the country’s national medical research institute, as the Bundibugyo virus outbreak continues to spread through eastern provinces. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the effort aims to strengthen the laboratory network to deliver real-time data, rapidly identify confirmed cases and save lives. As of May 26, the DRC’s Ministry of Health reported 121 confirmed cases, including 17 deaths, and 1,077 suspected cases, including 238 deaths, across Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces.
The WHO said on Thursday, via a post on X, that it is working in partnership with the Institut National de la Recherche Biomédicale (INRB), the DRC’s national medical research organisation, to scale up Ebola diagnostic capacities across the country.
INRB teams are deploying to Bunia to establish and expand testing operations. A decentralisation strategy is also being developed to add field laboratories in Mongbwalu and Mahagi, a health zone on the Ituri–Uganda border, while the Goma laboratory has been activated to provide testing capacities for North Kivu.
The announcement comes as case numbers accelerate. As of May 27, a total of 1,205 suspected and confirmed cases and at least 264 deaths had been reported, with experts considering it likely that the true number of infections considerably exceeds the suspected cases.
PCR kits have been sourced, while the WHO Regional Emergency Hub in Dakar is deploying reagents, Piccolo machines, and cold-chain modules to strengthen field laboratory operations. Genomic and epidemiological analyses are underway, and sequences have been published through a joint submission by DRC and Uganda on virological.org.
Dr. Tedros declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on May 17 — an action he took before convening the required emergency committee, a rare step that reflected the gravity of the situation. “I did it in accordance with Article 12 of the International Health Regulations, after consulting the Ministers of Health of both countries, and because I am deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic,” Dr. Tedros said during the World Health Assembly in Geneva on May 19.
He cited several compounding factors driving the rapid spread. “There are several factors that make us concerned about the potential for further spread and further deaths,” Dr. Tedros said. Beyond the confirmed cases, he pointed to the large number of suspected deaths, cases in densely populated urban areas including Kampala and Goma, and deaths among health workers — all conditioned by significant population movements in the affected region.
A critical factor slowing early containment was that standard diagnostic equipment in the field could not detect the Bundibugyo strain. The regional health centre in Bunia, where cases were first tested, uses a GeneXpert diagnostic machine that only recognises Ebola Zaire, the most common Ebola species and the cause of almost all previous outbreaks in the DRC, according to Dr. Placide Mbala, head of epidemiology and global health at the INRB. That gap meant the virus spread undetected for weeks before confirmation.
A batch of samples collected between April 28 and May 1 in a health zone named Aru tested negative in Bunia. Retesting those samples in Kinshasa with tools that can detect multiple Ebola species also yielded negative results. Another set of samples collected between May 3 and May 7 in Rwampara, a health zone about 200 kilometres from Aru, tested negative for Ebola in Bunia but came back positive in Kinshasa.
As the outbreak spirals, health workers are struggling to contain the virus as it spreads across a vast and conflict-torn region, according to NPR. Community distrust and active insecurity in parts of Ituri Province have hampered response operations on the ground.
The outbreak is believed to have originated in a rural area but has spread to cities including Bunia and Goma. Uganda has also reported cases linked to travel from the DRC. Uganda has reported seven confirmed cases, including one death, with three of those cases linked to travel from the DRC.
Regional and Global Impact
The Bundibugyo species of Ebola involved is one for which there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment, though work is ongoing to test promising candidates. The outbreak is occurring in a challenging context: humanitarian crisis, remote and densely populated areas, insecurity, and high population and trade movements.
The outbreak is occurring in areas affected by insecurity, population displacement, mining-related population movement, and frequent cross-border travel, all of which may increase the risk of further transmission, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC issued a Level 3 Travel Health Notice — its highest — for people travelling to the DRC, and a Level 1 notice for Uganda. The WHO has advised against the closure of international borders, and said the outbreak does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency comparable to COVID-19.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on May 27 that it assesses the likelihood of infection for people living in the EU and European Economic Area to be very low, and that it continues to monitor the situation closely.
Background
This is the 17th Ebola outbreak in the DRC, occurring only five months after the end of the previous outbreak, which ended in December 2025. The Bundibugyo species was first identified in 2007 in Bundibugyo district in western Uganda, during which 131 cases were reported with 42 deaths, a case fatality rate of 32%. Ebola has an average fatality rate of 50%, according to the WHO. The disease is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. The epidemic is caused by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which may complicate response efforts as existing Ebola treatments were developed and tested against the Zaire ebolavirus. The earliest known suspected case was a man in Ituri who began experiencing symptoms on April 24, 2026 and died three days later, though the Red Cross later announced on May 23 that three of its workers who died between May 5 and May 16 are believed to have contracted the virus on March 27 during dead body management activities in Mongwalu, before the outbreak had been identified.
What Happens Next
National authorities, in collaboration with WHO and partners, are implementing response measures including deployment of rapid response teams, delivery of medical supplies, strengthened surveillance, laboratory confirmation, infection prevention and control assessments, the set-up of safe treatment centres, and community engagement. A mobile laboratory is also being deployed to Kasese near the DRC–Uganda border, with a virtual diagnostics coordination meeting supporting cross-country laboratory operations. Preparedness activities include strengthening cold-chain systems, identifying clinical trial sites, training healthcare workers in good clinical practice, and enhancing laboratory diagnostic capacity to support future vaccine and therapeutic studies. The WHO’s IHR Emergency Committee, which convened its first meeting on May 19, is expected to issue further temporary recommendations to member states as the outbreak data from expanded testing becomes available.
