Congo's Ebola outbreak has killed over 1,000 people
[July 23, 2026]
By PROSPER HERI NGORORA and CHINEDU ASADU
BUNIA, Congo (AP) — More than 1,000 people have died in the Ebola
outbreak in Congo, according to Africa's top health body, a grim toll in
the fastest Ebola outbreak in history, as conflict, community resistance
and an uneven response fuel its spread.
Speaking at a health summit in Ghana on Wednesday, Dr. Jean Kaseya,
director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention, said 1,031 deaths have been confirmed.
“These are people dying. They are dying because we don’t have vaccines,
we don’t have medicine, we don’t have funding,” he added.
The latest update from Congo’s Ministry of Health showed that as of
Monday, 2,473 cases had been recorded in the latest outbreak. At least
737 patients were in isolation or hospitalized, it said.
The outbreak, which was declared on May 15, is unlike most previous
Ebola outbreaks because the Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no
approved vaccines or treatments. It has also killed more people at a
faster rate than any outbreak on record, including the 2013-2016
outbreak that is considered the worst on record with over 11,000 deaths
out of at least 28,000 cases. That outbreak took about eight months from
the first case to reach 1,000 deaths.
Conflict and community resistance are complicating the response
The World Health Organization has said the true scale of the outbreak
could be two to four times larger than official figures indicate. Some
communities at its epicenter also remain difficult to reach, mainly
because of fighting involving rebel groups.
Ebola is rare, but highly contagious and can be contracted through
contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. It can cause
severe illness and is often fatal.
Officials have warned that 80% of new cases have emerged outside known
chains of transmission, a sign the outbreak is spreading faster than
health officials can track it even as they step up their response in
Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, and four other provinces
where cases have been recorded.
Community resistance to Ebola teams, particularly those carrying out
safe burials, has also hampered the response. Robert Ndjalonga, head of
civil protection in Ituri province, said some communities have refused
to allow burial teams to operate because they prefer traditional
burials, increasing the risk of further transmission.
“The biggest challenge remains resistance from or outright refusal by
some communities to accept response teams," Ndjalonga said. "On several
occasions, burial teams have had to be escorted by security forces to
ensure that safe and dignified burials could be carried out without
incident.”
Shortages of burial supplies have delayed responses to reported deaths,
while some affected health zones still lack operational burial teams,
Ndjalonga said.
Attacks on health facilities and response teams have also forced
front-line workers and aid groups out of some areas. Some health workers
have gone on strike, saying they haven’t been paid since the outbreak
started.
A member of a team carrying out safe Ebola burials was recently injured
when assailants threw stones at the team’s vehicle following a burial in
Bunia last week, according to provincial civil protection authorities.
The attack highlighted the challenges facing the response in eastern
Congo. In Ituri’s Irumu territory, the local military administrator
recently described Ebola as a greater threat than the Islamic
State-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces insurgency and urged residents
to support, rather than attack, health workers.
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Health workers disinfects an ambulance at Ebola Treatment Center at
Bunia General Hospital in Ituri, Congo, Wednesday, July 22, 2026.
(AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
 Containment efforts are faltering
A humanitarian worker involved in the response, speaking on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly, cited poor coordination between response agencies, delays
in transferring patients to treatment centers and waits of more than
four days for some Ebola test results.
“At times, it’s unclear who is doing what and where,” the worker
said.
The delays have led some patients to leave health facilities before
they can be diagnosed, increasing the risk of further transmission,
the worker said.
Africa CDC head Kaseya called for intensified efforts to slow the
outbreak on the first day of the health summit in Ghana Tuesday.
“If we do not stop this outbreak today, it could become one of the
worst Ebola outbreaks the world has ever documented,” Kaseya said.
Less than 9% of the contacts of confirmed patients who are expected
to be traced are currently being monitored, far below the level
needed to contain the outbreak, according to Africa CDC. More than
60% of deaths are occurring in the community before patients can
receive care.
Pierre Akilimali, the Ebola response incident manager at the
National Public Health Institute of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, said the high number of community deaths suggests many
infections are not being detected or isolated in time, allowing the
virus to continue spreading.
Experts warn of a worsening crisis
Last month, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention used computer modeling to estimate how the outbreak could
evolve. In a worst-case scenario, they said it could approach the
scale of the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic.
“There’s never been an Ebola outbreak that started with so many
cases because it was so late to be identified,” said Trish Newport,
emergency program manager for Doctors Without Borders, who has been
working in Congo.
“It’s like the outbreak is outrunning the response,” Newport said.
University of Pittsburgh epidemiologist Dr. Jean Nachega, who is
advising African health authorities, said he does not expect the
outbreak to reach the CDC’s worst-case scenario but cautioned that
the challenges remain “huge.”
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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria. Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia,
Congo, Mike Stobbe in New York and Naa Adorkor Cudjoe in Accra,
Ghana, contributed.
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