Congo’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak reaches a sixth province
[August 14, 2026]
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s Ebola outbreak has spread to a
sixth province after a death was recorded in the previously unaffected
Bas-Uele province, the head of Africa's CDC said Thursday.
The man died in Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, after traveling there
from Isiro in Haut-Uele province, said Jean Kaseya, director general of
Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
He was a motorcycle-taxi driver who had sought treatment at several
hospitals before he died, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of Congo’s National
Institute for Biomedical Research, said. His colleagues tried to
forcibly take his dead body, prompting police intervention and concerns
that more people may have been exposed to the virus, Muyembe added.
The outbreak in eastern Congo, considered the fastest-growing one yet,
is on track to surpass the deadliest one in history, which erupted over
a decade ago and killed over 11,000 people, the World Health
Organization said Wednesday. There are no approved vaccines or
treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current
outbreak.
It has killed over 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according
to the latest government figures. This death toll has been reached
almost three times faster than in the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West
Africa — the worst in history.
The outbreak is unfolding in some of the most challenging conditions
imaginable, with strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel
groups, anger from long-traumatized communities and misinformation
asserting that Ebola isn’t real.
Bas-Uele is a vast province in northeastern Congo that borders the
Central African Republic, where there is recurring armed violence that
has forced thousands to flee and take refuge in the province. Access can
be difficult due to bad and poorly connected roads as well as limited
communication networks, and there are frequent population movements
related to gold mining and displacement from conflict.
As of Thursday, six out of 26 of Congo’s provinces have been impacted.
About 90% of all cases and 80% of deaths are concentrated in Ituri
province, the WHO said Wednesday.
Mercy Corps, an aid group, warned Thursday that Ebola cases have been
reported along a major travel route about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from
Congo's border with South Sudan, expressing concern over the outbreak's
“widening footprint.” No cases have been confirmed in South Sudan so
far.
Unpaid health workers' strikes and low contact tracing hamper response
Meanwhile, health workers at the Nizi Treatment Center in Ituri
province, one of the most affected in the area, went on strike Thursday,
leading to the temporary closure of the center after they said they have
not been paid for three months.
Kaseya on Thursday called on the Congolese government to pay the
outstanding salaries.
“We need to pay health workers,” he told reporters. “This is the
responsibility of the government, not partners. And they told us that
money is available.”
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Wiza Bondele, a health worker on the prevention and control team, is
seen at work in Ituri province, eastern Congo, Wednesday, Aug 5,
2026. (AP Photo/Dieudonne Dirole)
 The real scope of the outbreak
remains unknown. It was declared on May 15, but the WHO now says
sequencing showed it began months earlier, in February.
Health authorities have said between 60% and 70% of new cases are
recorded outside contacts being monitored, and that the disease is
spreading at an “alarming” rate. Contact tracing helps break chains
of transmission by finding exposed people early and reacting quickly
if they show symptoms.
“We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us,” the WHO
regional director for Africa, Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said this
week.
On Thursday, Kaseya from Africa CDC said “the concept of contact
tracing in DRC has become useless.”
Trials for treatments and vaccines are underway
Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted from
bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and from contaminated
surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing. The disease it
causes is severe and often fatal.
Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola
began last month in Ituri, the most affected of the five provinces
in Congo where cases have been reported.
Two vaccines developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus are now
being tested in people for the first time, the WHO said Wednesday.
WHO also plans to test whether an existing Ebola vaccine could
protect people against the virus after studies in animals showed
promising results.
Kaseya said on Thursday that the Africa CDC supports the use of
Ervebo, a vaccine authorized against the Zaire Ebola strain in
provinces impacted by Bundibugyo virus. He said some studies show
some cross-protection from the available vaccines.
“We are in a gray area,” he said. “And when you are in a gray area,
you have to make strong decisions to stop seeing people dying."
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Associated Press reporters Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo,
Justin Kabumba in Goma, Congo and Jean-Yves Kamale in Kinshasa
contributed.
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