The 2026 Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda

The toll rose faster than in any earlier outbreak. Confirmed cases passed 1,000 in June, with 254 deaths.^[2] In July, the death toll passed 1,000 and Africa's health agency called the outbreak the fastest-growing on record.^[14][15] By mid-August, with more than 2,300 dead, it had surpassed the 2018-2020 outbreak as the deadliest in Congo's history.^[3] The WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that it was on course to become the deadliest ever recorded.^[16] The virus reached the city of Kisangani in July and a sixth province in August.^[17][18] It reached a seventh in September, when cases fell in Ituri but rose sharply in neighboring North Kivu.^[19] Deaths neared 3,000 at the start of September and passed 4,000 a month later.^[20][21]

Responders have worked against violence, strikes and distrust. Residents burned an Ebola treatment center in May after being stopped from retrieving a man's body,^[22] and by mid-July the authorities had recorded at least a dozen attacks on health facilities and workers.^[23] Health workers at the epicenter walked off the job in July over delayed pay,^[24] and in September the WHO said Congo was running short of staff for its treatment centers.^[25] In late September, a Congolese politician who had publicly defended the government's response was beaten to death.^[26]

With nothing approved against Bundibugyo, the medical response has been a set of trials. The WHO began one in July of an antiviral drug meant to prevent infection in people exposed to the virus.^[27] In August, it said Congo would receive 70,000 doses of Ervebo, a vaccine that was effective in past Ebola outbreaks. The agency said it was not known whether Ervebo protects against Bundibugyo, though early laboratory and animal data suggested it might offer some protection.^[28] Health workers in Bunia, the outbreak's epicenter, began receiving it in September, in a program testing whether a vaccine designed for a different strain would work.^[29]

Outside Congo, governments moved to keep the virus out. Uganda closed its border with Congo on May 27^[30] and declared itself free of Ebola in late July, after its last patient was discharged in mid-June.^[8] The United States barred entry to people without US passports who had been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan.^[31] It required flights carrying travelers from the region to land at Dulles International Airport in Virginia for screening.^[32] It also planned a facility in Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus, which a Kenyan court suspended and protesters opposed.^[33][34]

Cases still turned up abroad. An American doctor who tested positive in May was flown to Germany for treatment,^[35] a French doctor tested positive in June after returning from Congo,^[36] and another US citizen tested positive in July.^[37] On October 6, Kenya confirmed its first case, a Kenyan who had been living in Congo and died after returning to Nairobi.^[9] By mid-October, Kenya's cases had risen to eight and Nigeria had recorded its first case, and the Africa CDC called a crisis summit.^[10] The WHO warned that the outbreak, by then present in three African countries, had become more complex, and the Africa CDC's chief said the continent was at risk of a continent-wide crisis.^[38] The agency and Congolese officials also said more than $700 million in Ebola aid was unaccounted for and asked aid groups to explain their spending.^[39] The outbreak was still spreading in Congo and beyond.^[40][41] In late October a pivotal vaccine trial began in Congo,^[7] attackers killed a nurse responding to an Ebola alert there,^[42] and Uganda tightened its border controls.^[43] Cases passed 10,000, raising questions about whether health authorities were losing control of the outbreak.^[5] In early November a British doctor working on the epidemic in Congo was evacuated to a London hospital for treatment,^[44] and by November 11 Congo's cases had passed 11,000.^[4]