WHO representative to the DRC, Dr Anne Ancia, told reporters in Geneva that there were more than 500 suspected cases, including 130 suspected deaths, but only 30 cases have been confirmed in the country so far.
The agency is working closely with authorities and is urgently sending more test kits to eastern DRC to identify cases of infection with the Bundibugyo virus, a species of Ebola for which there is no vaccine or treatment.
“We have great uncertainty about the number of infections and the extent of the spread of the virus,” Dr. Ancia said.
First cases
Speaking from Bunia, Ituri province, where the cases were initially detected, Dr Ancia said the outbreak had also reached North Kivu, with cases confirmed in Butembo and Goma. Uganda also confirmed two imported cases.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday morning. He expressed concern about “the scale and speed of the epidemic”.
Uncertainty remains about where and how the outbreak began.
“I don’t think we have ‘patient zero’ yet,” Dr. Ancia said. “What we know for the moment is that on May 5, there was… a person who died in Bunia. The body was brought back [to] Mongbwalu… and put in a coffin. And then the family decided that the coffin wasn’t worth the person. And so… they changed the coffin. And then there was the funeral, and that’s where it all started.
Detection of the first cases was slowed by the fact that local tests carried out in Bunia showed negative results for the Zaire strain of Ebola. The wide range of symptoms – fever, fatigue, diarrhea and vomiting – also complicated the task of making a rapid diagnosis, with the added difficulty that nosebleeds, also associated with the disease, did not begin until the fifth day of infection, the WHO official explained.
Breakthrough in Kinshasa
Ultimately, it was only thanks to tests carried out in Kinshasa that the presence of the Bundibugyo virus was finally revealed.
Dr. Ancia said there is international focus on potential vaccines or treatments that could help combat the outbreak. A WHO technical advisory group was to meet Tuesday afternoon “to provide further recommendations to WHO and its member states on which potential vaccines should be prioritized,” she said.
Ervebo, a vaccine against Zaire’s Ebola virus, is being studied, the WHO representative said, but “it would take two months for it to be available.”
Although a vaccine could provide additional prevention and protection to affected populations, the key to containing transmission lies in outreach work within communities to raise awareness, combat misinformation and ensure compliance with health measures, particularly during funerals.
“If we use coercive measures and the population does not agree, we will see bodies disappear. We will see suspected cases refusing to report to hospitals and health facilities,” Dr. Ancia warned, emphasizing the continued engagement of health workers with schools, churches and community leaders.
WHO is supporting the government-led response with more than 40 health professionals on the ground and through the deployment of additional supplies and diagnostic capacity, in what remains a “very complex epidemiological, operational and humanitarian context”, characterized by insecurity and displacement, the WHO representative said.
Vulnerability of internally displaced people
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that the affected provinces of Ituri and North Kivu are home to more than two million displaced and returnees, while health care capacity remains weakened by the conflict.
There are also concerns about the fate of refugees living in affected areas. In Ituri, some 11,000 South Sudanese refugees need preventive assistance, while in the rebel-held North Kivu capital, Goma, more than 2,000 Rwandan and Burundian refugees need health supplies.
The most recent Zaire Ebola virus outbreak in the DRC ended in December 2025, and the trauma of a major outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri in 2018-19 lingers among the population.
Dr. Ancia stressed that while it may be two months before a vaccine is available, “it will not be two months before the epidemic occurs.”
“Remember the previous one, it took two years,” she warned.
