Experts warn of wider spread as Ebola outbreak reaches plateau
[October 30, 2026]
By MIKE STOBBE
NEW YORK (AP) — The Ebola outbreak in Congo passed a grim milestone this
week — 10,000 confirmed cases — and spurred questions about whether
health authorities are losing their ability to contain it.
Nearly half the infected people in this outbreak have died, and some
experts say there are reasons to worry this could grow into the worst
Ebola outbreak in history. Others don't think it will reach that level.
Researchers are currently working on updated projections.
Current circumstances suggest it's unlikely to spark significant
problems in most other countries, some researchers said. But about 30
confirmed cases have already popped up in other nations. And the risk
that more will appear outside Congo will grow if the outbreak isn't
tamed, said Justin Lessler, a University of North Carolina researcher
who studies the dynamics of infectious disease outbreaks.
Experts also are hopeful that a vaccine will become available next year
that could help control it.
At a virtual summit of African health ministers on Wednesday, Africa CDC
Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya said the continent is “not winning” the
fight against Ebola and needs to do more after it spread to multiple
African countries. “Together, we agreed to prepare every country,
coordinate across our borders and keep those borders open while watching
them closely,” Kaseya wrote on X.
Steady case numbers raise concerns about spread beyond Congo
About 400 to 500 new confirmed cases have been reported in Congo each
week, and that number seems to be holding steady. It's good news that
“cases are not rising exponentially,” at least for the moment, said Dr.
Boghuma Titanji, an Emory University infectious disease specialist.
“But they’re not coming down, either," she said. "It’s at a plateau. And
the plateau is at a very, very high set point."
A major challenge in Congo is limited contact tracing and collaboration
with affected communities; health workers sometimes spend more time
trying to convince locals to work with them than giving care.
Fewer than a quarter of new cases are coming from people known to have
been in contact with an infected person, showing there are ongoing
chains of transmission that health authorities are not aware of.
As cases mount, the likelihood grows that more infected people travel to
other countries, Titanji and other experts said. France, Kenya, Nigeria
and Uganda also have reported cases tied to the Congo outbreak.
Travel restrictions, like those imposed by the U.S., can make it harder
for the virus to leave Africa. And in many places where a traveler's
infection may surface, health officials should be able to quickly
isolate an infected person and find any contacts, experts say.
“The direct risk it poses to the U.S. at this point, I’d say, is very
close to zero,” Lessler said.
But Ebola could flare in poor and conflict-stricken places with weakened
health systems — like South Sudan, for example, Lessler said.
Viruses that cause Ebola disease spread through contact with bodily
fluids such as vomit, blood and semen.
The outbreak already ranks as the second largest
Dozens of Ebola outbreaks have been reported since the disease was first
discovered in 1976. The largest and deadliest occurred in West Africa in
2014 to 2016, with 28,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths.
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A healthcare worker walks inside a treatment center for Ebola
patients in Beni, North Kivu province, eastern Congo, Tuesday, Oct.
27, 2026. (AP Photo/Sebastien Kitsa Musayi)
 The current outbreak already ranks
second, and has had at least three times the number of cases and
deaths in the time since it was declared compared with the West
Africa outbreak. Health officials declared the outbreak in May, but
medical evidence suggests infections were occurring months earlier.
One reason is that past outbreaks were almost all caused by the
Ebola virus. Initial testing was geared toward that virus — not the
related, but different, Bundibugyo virus that was actually causing
illnesses.
A series of other challenges have hurt the response, including armed
conflict in some outbreak areas, gaps in the health system, mistrust
and misinformation, and global aid cuts, experts say.
Conditions vary in Congo, which explains why cases can be stable or
falling in some places but can be trending up in others, researchers
and response workers say.
“Testing, care and contact tracing only work if we work with
communities, going door to door, village by village to break the
chain of transmission and stop this deadly escalation,” said Katie
Thomas-Canfield, the International Rescue Committee’s Ebola response
director, in a statement.
Dr. Wendy Armstrong, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of
America, said she thinks the situation is going to get worse.
“This is very far from being controlled,” she said.
Scientists are updating projections
Experts expect the outbreak will continue through the end of the
year, but Titanji is hopeful about 2027. That's because vaccines are
being tested against the Bundibugyo virus, and she is optimistic an
effective shot will become available in the next 12 months.
She noted no vaccines were available early in the 2014-2016 West
Africa outbreak.
Forecasting the outbreak is difficult, of course, but scientists
have been trying.
In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
published a range of scenarios generated by computer models. At the
time, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was
reporting 400 confirmed cases. The U.S. CDC models estimated the
growth in cases over three months could run from 10,000 to more than
20,000.
The CDC is updating its modeling work. But the agency declined to
let The Associated Press interview staff scientists about how the
outbreak is trending.
Alessandro Vespignani, a Northeastern University disease modeler,
has been monitoring trends with U.S. and international health
officials.
There's not been the kind of “decay in the number of cases weekly
that we need to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
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