HQ Team
August 17, 2026: An outbreak of the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which has no approved vaccines or treatments, has killed 2,325 people, becoming the deadliest in the central African country of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The death toll has surpassed the 2018-2020 outbreak of 2,299, which was previously the country’s worst on record, according to government data.
The outbreak, Congo’s 17th, was officially declared on May 15 and is caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola virus. The case fatality ratio has risen from about 20% in early June to 46%, meaning nearly one in every two confirmed cases is now deadly, according to the data.
The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that at its current pace, the outbreak is on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016, a crisis that killed more than 11,000 people.
During a press briefing in Geneva last Wednesday, Tedros said, “It’s already the second-biggest Ebola epidemic on record, and it’s moving faster than any previous Ebola outbreak.”
Congo’s public health institute, in its August 16 update, stated that confirmed cases had risen to 4,945, including 101 new cases detected in the previous 24 hours.
Bodily fluids
The Bundibugyo species of Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, living or dead. It can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, internal and external bleeding.
Three months after it was formally announced, the outbreak is now dwarfed only by West Africa’s 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, in which 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths were recorded across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the WHO.
It took nearly five months from the declaration of that outbreak to hit 1,000 deaths, whereas Congo’s current outbreak hit 2,000 deaths in less than three months.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an agency of the European Union, data on the number of cases and deaths by province and health zone were only available for cases reported on 11 August.
Out of a total of 4,566 confirmed cases on 11 August and 2,128 confirmed deaths, Ituri province remains the most affected, with 3,912 cases, including 1,702 deaths, reported from 28 of 36 health zones. Across eastern Congo, 2.6 million people are seriously malnourished, with more than half located in Ituri.
In North Kivu, 528 cases, including 369 deaths, have been reported from 12 of 34 health zones. In South Kivu, three cases, including one death, have been reported from one of 34 health zones. In Haut-Uele, 115 cases, including 51 deaths, have been reported from six of 13 health zones.
Uganda
In Tshopo, nine cases, including five deaths, have been reported from six of 23 health zones.
In Congo, there have been 17 Ebola outbreaks in 50 years. On 17 May, the World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency of international concern as Bundibugyo virus disease re-emerged and spread to Uganda within days, but is now under control in that country.
As of 8 July, 1759 suspected cases and 600 deaths had been reported across the provinces of Ituri and Nord-Kivu. The previous Ebola outbreak in DRC ended just five months previously; the one before that ended in 2021.
The question is not why this outbreak occurred, but why DRC faces Ebola again and again, and what will finally break that cycle. “The answer matters well beyond DRC’s borders,” according to an opinion article published in the BMJ journal.
“As outbreaks recur in the same fragile settings, global health institutions continue funding emergency response at the expense of the trust-building investments that might finally end the cycle.
“The answer lies in a convergence of structural vulnerabilities. DRC borders nine countries, and cross-border movement allows pathogens to outpace chronically underfunded local surveillance systems. Decades of armed conflict have displaced millions in the affected areas, leaving health facilities damaged and surveillance unable to distinguish Ebola from endemic febrile illness.”
Fruit bat species
Deforestation and agricultural expansion brought human populations into direct contact with the fruit bat species identified as the principal reservoir hosts for Ebola virus.
Hunting and handling of bats as a protein source has been directly implicated in spillover events. Beneath these structural conditions lies a deeper vulnerability that epidemiological models consistently underestimate—the erosion of community trust in outside medical responders.
The current outbreak’s momentum has been attributed to weak health infrastructure, the region’s remoteness, and ongoing conflict near the DRC’s borders with South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda, which have hindered response efforts.
Four days after WHO sounded the alarm, residents in Rwampara, Ituri, stormed an Ebola treatment facility and set it alight when authorities refused to release the body of a man who had died there. A day later, a tent at a Médecins Sans Frontières facility in nearby Mongbwalu was also burned.
“These were not isolated acts, nor were they justified. They were warning signs: the latest expression of a pattern throughout DRC’s long history of the disease in which communities, having learned to regard outside health responses with suspicion, signalled the collapse of legitimacy through the most visible means available to them.
‘Ebola is winning’
“During the 2018 to 2020 outbreak, WHO documented approximately 390 attacks on health facilities: 11 health workers were killed, and 83 were injured.
A single phrase captured the sentiment across affected communities: “Ebola is a business.”
The epidemic is killing one person every 30 minutes, according to the UN. “Ebola is winning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher said. “We cannot let the virus outrun our response.”
The UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) recently deployed a further 20 staff to the epicentre of the outbreak, but Fletcher said more may be needed to slow the spread.
Six of the DRC’s 26 provinces have recorded Ebola cases, and Uganda has reported 20 cases.
“This is a wake-up call,” Fletcher said. ”We need speed, scale and solidarity before this virus gets even further ahead of us.”
