KINSHASA / GENEVA, 27 October 2026
The numbers are now too big to look away from. Congo's Ministry of Health said on Tuesday that the country has recorded 10,060 confirmed cases of Ebola, with nearly half of those patients dead. It is the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country that has fought the virus again and again for nearly fifty years. And according to officials, it is also the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded anywhere on Earth.
There is a brutal twist. This is not the Ebola strain the world has vaccines for. The culprit is Bundibugyo virus, a rarer cousin of the Zaire strain that triggered the 2014 West Africa catastrophe. For Bundibugyo, there is no approved vaccine and no approved treatment. Doctors on the front line are fighting with isolation wards, protective gear, burial teams and sheer stamina.
Since the outbreak was declared on 15 May 2026, the Associated Press reports, it has at least tripled the cases and deaths seen at the same stage of the 2014 to 2016 West Africa epidemic, which went on to kill more than 11,000 people. Cases have now been recorded in five countries: Congo, Uganda, France, Kenya and Nigeria.
From three health zones to sixty-six
When the outbreak was first declared in May, cases were confined to just three health zones. Today they are spread across 66 health zones in eight provinces of Congo. The epicentre remains Ituri province in the country's volatile east, a region scarred by armed conflict, poor roads and deep community mistrust.
The World Health Organization's latest Disease Outbreak News bulletin, published on 23 October, lays out the scale. As of 20 October, Congo had 9,704 confirmed cases, including 4,687 deaths, a crude case fatality rate of 48.3 per cent. A further 2,595 people had recovered. Ituri alone accounts for 7,040 cases and 3,271 deaths. Neighbouring North Kivu has 2,146 cases and 1,199 deaths, and the highest provincial fatality rate at 55.9 per cent. Haut-Uele has 421 cases and 183 deaths, and Tshopo has 76 cases and 27 deaths.
WHO notes that this is only the second Bundibugyo outbreak ever seen in Congo, and the largest Ebola outbreak the country has ever suffered, regardless of the virus species. By comparison, earlier Bundibugyo outbreaks had fatality rates of about 30 per cent in Uganda in 2007 and about 50 per cent in Congo in 2012. The current toll is running at the upper end of that range.
The scariest number: 80 per cent of new cases are invisible
Health officials track an outbreak by following the contacts of every confirmed patient. If almost all new cases come from people already being watched, the chain of infection can be broken. Africa CDC says at least 95 per cent of new cases should be among known contacts before an outbreak can be considered largely under control.
In Congo, the figure is nowhere near that. Roughly 80 per cent of new cases are not among monitored contacts, meaning the virus is moving through chains of transmission that responders simply cannot see. WHO says contact follow-up stood at 79.7 per cent on 20 October, with North Kivu the weakest at 73.3 per cent.
The other warning sign is where people are dying. Of 482 deaths reported since WHO's previous update, 307 happened in communities rather than in treatment centres. At least half of all deaths overall have been among people who were never admitted for care. In plain terms: people are falling sick, staying home or being turned away, and dying, often infecting family members who nurse them. Many first cases were only confirmed long after symptoms began, or after the patient had already travelled.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood and bodily fluids of a person who is sick or has died. People are not infectious until symptoms begin, and the incubation period runs from two to twenty-one days. Fruit bats are suspected to be the natural reservoir of Bundibugyo virus.
Spillover: Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and France
The virus is now travelling. Kenya confirmed its first case on 6 October, an adult man who had travelled from Congo via Uganda and died on 5 October. As of 20 October, Kenya had nine cases and one death. Eight of those are secondary cases in a single cluster, made up of four family members and four health and care workers. WHO says all 135 contacts have been traced and quarantined, and there is no evidence of spread beyond the cluster.
Nigeria confirmed an imported case in the capital, Abuja, on 20 October. The patient had travelled from Uganda, developed symptoms on 7 October and is now in isolation. Authorities are monitoring 44 contacts and investigating how the person became infected. Uganda and France have also recorded cases but, according to the latest reports, have no active cases at present.
WHO assessed the risk on 14 August as very high in Congo, high for countries sharing a land border with it, and low for the rest of the African region and globally. A revised rapid risk assessment is under way. The agency continues to advise against restricting travel or trade with affected countries, a position echoed by the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, whose temporary recommendations of 24 August stressed coordinated control, cross-border cooperation and sustained surveillance.
A first glimmer of hope: the TUMAINI vaccine trial
One genuinely new development arrived last week. On 23 October, a Phase 2/3 vaccine trial named TUMAINI began enrolling participants in Bunia, the main city of Ituri. WHO described the trial as the first to test candidate vaccines against Bundibugyo virus disease, with participants drawn from the contacts of confirmed cases. It is led by Congo's National Institute for Biomedical Research, known by its French initials INRB, with technical, scientific and logistical support from WHO.
"Tumaini" is Swahili for hope. Ituri's governor, Major General Kasongo Gaby, said the launch "reflects our shared determination not to passively accept health threats." The trial is also, importantly, a test: it will take time to learn whether any candidate works, and trial doses reach only a fraction of the people at risk. Kenya's government has reportedly asked for 10,000 doses, according to Kenyan media.
There was a rare moment of cheer too. A video went viral this week showing health workers dancing and celebrating the discharge of the last two patients at a treatment centre in Mongbwalu, in Ituri. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus shared it, saying: "The outbreak is far from over, but every life saved is worth celebrating."
Obstacles: guns, strikes and mistrust
Everything that can go wrong for an outbreak response seems to be going wrong at once. Armed conflict and violence limit access to communities. Roads are poor. Misinformation and mistrust are widespread, and Sephora Bgosi of an Ebola burial team in Ituri told the AP that some residents still do not grasp how dangerous the disease is. "Ebola disease is extremely dangerous and can be deadly," she said.
Treatment centres are overwhelmed in some zones. Health workers have gone on strike over delayed or unpaid wages. In a tragic reminder of the risks responders run, a nurse was killed and another health worker severely injured while answering an alert in Bafwasende, in Tshopo province.
The damage goes beyond Ebola itself. Maternal deaths have doubled in some provinces as pregnant women avoid hospitals out of fear. Routine childhood vaccinations have been disrupted, schooling has been interrupted, and attention has been pulled away from other outbreaks such as cholera. Some of the outbreak's deadliest effects may never be counted as Ebola deaths.
Expert perspective
Dr Jean Kaseya, head of Africa CDC, has been blunt. "Ebola is crossing borders. Our response must move faster, with stronger coordination," he said, calling for decisive political leadership. African health ministers will hold a virtual summit on Wednesday to try to harden a continent-wide response.
The yardstick used by public health experts is simple. If follow-up of contacts climbs toward 95 per cent, if the share of deaths in communities falls, and if patients reach treatment centres early, the curve can bend. None of those three markers has yet turned in the right direction, which is why WHO and Africa CDC continue to describe the situation in the gravest terms.
What this means for you
For most readers outside central and east Africa, the risk is low. WHO currently rates the global risk as low, and Ebola does not spread through the air like flu or measles. A person without symptoms cannot pass it on. That said, the outbreak has already touched five countries, including one in Europe, so travel advice can change quickly.
If you are planning travel to affected areas, check your government's travel health advice before you go. If you have visited an affected area and develop fever, severe headache, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea or unexplained bleeding within 21 days, phone your health service before turning up in person, and tell them where you have been. Do not self-medicate and travel to a clinic on public transport.
The wider lesson is one that health experts keep repeating. Outbreaks in distant countries are rarely distant for long, and a vaccine that does not exist cannot be stockpiled. The TUMAINI trial is a first step, not a solution.
The road ahead
Ten thousand confirmed cases in under six months is a milestone nobody wanted. Congo's responders now face the toughest phase: finding the 80 per cent of new cases they cannot see, paying and protecting exhausted health workers, and winning back the trust of communities that have good reason to be wary. At the same time, scientists must learn quickly whether any vaccine candidate can protect the contacts of patients.
For now, the images that define this outbreak are two very different ones. One is of burial teams in protective suits at the edge of villages. The other is of nurses dancing as two patients walk out of a treatment centre alive. Which one wins out in the coming weeks will depend on how fast the world, and Congo's own health system, can move.
This story is developing and figures are updated regularly by Congo's Ministry of Health and WHO. Figures cited here come from the AP report of 27 October 2026 and WHO Disease Outbreak News of 23 October 2026.
