• Suspected deaths climb to 220; new cases in Uganda as Congo remains epicentre; 10 bordering nations urged to take immediate action
• Angry mobs target, burn isolation units in Ituri, forcing dozens of patients to flee
• Locals demand release of highly infectious bodies
GENEVA: A fast-moving Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda that has caused 220 suspected deaths is outpacing response efforts, the head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday, urging neighbouring countries to take immediate action to counter the deadly virus.
Addressing an online meeting of the African Union about the outbreak, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that a delay in detecting the cases meant responders were now “playing catch-up” and the epidemic was likely to get worse before it gets better, he said.
“The outbreak is spreading rapidly,” Tedros told the virtual ministerial meeting on the viral haemorrhagic fever, which spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids and can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.
Tedros said he would travel on Tuesday to Congo, the epicentre of the outbreak, with Chikwe Ihekweazu, a senior WHO official responsible for addressing health emergencies.
The WHO has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola a public health emergency of international concern.
Earlier on Monday, neighbouring Uganda reported two more Ebola cases, taking its total number of confirmed cases to seven, with one confirmed death. Tedros said other countries bordering Congo are at especially high risk and should act immediately.
The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed Ebola deaths since May 15. The African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC, warned on Saturday that 10 African countries are at risk of being affected, in addition to Congo and Uganda.
Tedros said the current outbreak was “especially challenging” for three reasons. First, the delay in detection means the epidemic is outpacing the urgently scaling operations.
Second, Congo’s eastern Ituri and North Kivu provinces, where the outbreak was first detected on May 15, are highly insecure with intensified fighting and significant distrust of outside authorities. Third, there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo strain.
Attacks on health facilities
Adding to the crisis, doctors operating on the front lines of the fight against Ebola in Congo, already grappling with shortages of basic supplies, are now having to deal with attacks on their facilities and fleeing patients as the virus spreads rapidly.
At least three such incidents occurred over the weekend in the northeastern province of Ituri, including two targeting the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, which permitted more than two dozen patients to run away.
Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of the Mongbwalu hospital, said a familiar dynamic is playing out.
“There is denial of the disease within the population, with some members wanting to claim the bodies of suspected and/or confirmed cases,” he said.
At the Mongbwalu hospital, 18 Ebola patients fled on Saturday after unidentified individuals burnt isolation tents erected by the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, Lokodu said. Four lab results from those patients have come back, yielding three negative results and one positive result.
“So we have one confirmed case of Ebola that continues to circulate in the community and evade the response,” Lokodu said.
On Sunday, the hospital came under four waves of attacks by young people mobilised by relatives of a Christian religious leader who died of Ebola. Seven other patients escaped, and Congolese police and soldiers had to mobilise to restore order. A suspected Ebola patient in critical condition with haemorrhaging died in the second attack while trying to flee from his bed, Lokodu added.
The perpetrators wanted the dead victims’ bodies released for burial. The bodies of Ebola victims are highly infectious after death, and unsafe burials, in which family members handle the body without proper protective equipment, are a leading driver of transmission.
The incidents recall the widespread violence targeting health facilities during a 2018-2020 outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 25 health workers.
During that crisis, some attacks were perpetrated by civilians angry about burial restrictions or convinced the outbreak was a hoax. An influx of money and manpower into a historically neglected area also spurred local suspicions.
Additionally, researchers found that militia groups carried out many attacks to exploit the outbreak for political and financial gain.
The current outbreak is believed to have originated in Ituri before spreading into North and South Kivu provinces — including areas controlled by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels — and across the border into Uganda.
Tedros noted on Sunday that there had been more than 900 suspected cases in the outbreak so far, including 101 confirmed cases.
Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2026