Africa’s top public health body has confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province, with 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths recorded so far.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Friday, May 15, 2026, that the deaths and suspected cases have been reported mainly in the Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones. Four deaths have been reported among laboratory-confirmed cases, while suspected cases have also been reported in Bunia, the provincial capital near the border with Uganda.
Preliminary laboratory results from the National Institute of Biomedical Research detected the Ebola virus in 13 of 20 samples tested. Initial findings suggest the presence of a non-Zaire strain of the virus, with sequencing ongoing to further characterise it. Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba said eight cases of the Bundibugyo strain have been confirmed in the health zones of Rwampara, Mongwalu and Bunia.
“Africa CDC is concerned about the risk of further spread due to the urban context of Bunia and Rwampara” as well as “intense population movement” and mobility related to mining in the affected areas, which are close to Uganda and South Sudan, the agency added.
Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya said rapid regional coordination is essential given the high population movement between affected areas and neighbouring countries. The agency is convening an urgent high-level coordination meeting with health authorities from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan, together with key partners including UN agencies, to reinforce cross-border surveillance, preparedness and response efforts.
The outbreak marks the 17th in Congo since Ebola was first identified there in the mid-1970s. It comes about five months after the country’s last Ebola outbreak in Kasai Province was declared over in December 2025, which killed 45 people.
Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Congolese virologist who co-discovered Ebola and heads the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, told Reuters that all but one of Congo’s 16 previous outbreaks had been caused by the Zaire strain. He said the identification of a different variant will complicate the response, as existing treatments and vaccines were developed against the Zaire strain.
The suspected index case was a nurse who died at the Evangelical Medical Centre in Bunia after showing symptoms that included fever, bleeding, vomiting and severe weakness. The DRC government said it has activated its public health emergency operations centre, strengthened epidemiological and laboratory surveillance, and ordered the rapid deployment of response teams.
Neighbouring Uganda has confirmed one death in an Ebola case, which it said was imported from Congo. The person died at a hospital in Kampala after travelling from the DRC.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted through bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.
