As of 3 June 2026, the Democratic Republic of the Congo Ministry of Health reported 363 confirmed cases of Ebola disease, including 62 confirmed deaths, with a further 116 suspected cases under investigation. Uganda has reported fifteen confirmed cases and one death. The DRC figure rose by 19 confirmed cases in the latest reporting day, following 23 confirmed cases in a single day between 31 May and 1 June. The suspected-case count was revised down from over 900 in late May after broader laboratory testing ruled out hundreds of fever cases that turned out to be other diseases. Both countries declared the outbreak on 15 May. The World Health Organization declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 17 May — the first time a WHO Director-General has issued such a declaration before convening an Emergency Committee.
The outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus, one of the four species of Ebola virus known to cause human disease. The strain has a historical case fatality rate of between twenty-five and fifty percent, lower than the more familiar Zaire strain. Unlike the Zaire strain, however, Bundibugyo has no approved vaccine and no approved therapeutic. The two licensed Ebola vaccines — Ervebo and the Zabdeno-Mvabea two-dose regimen — were developed against the Zaire strain. Animal studies suggest Ervebo may offer partial protection against Bundibugyo, but the evidence is preliminary and the vaccine is not currently being used at scale in this outbreak.
Transmission is concentrated in eastern DRC. Ituri Province accounts for 341 of the 363 confirmed cases across seventeen health zones, with the most affected zones at Bunia, Rwampara, Mongbwalu, and Nyankunde. North Kivu has reported nineteen confirmed cases and South Kivu three. A traveller from Tshopo carried the virus into South Kivu in late May. An American national who had been treating patients in DRC tested positive and was transferred to Germany for care. On 31 May and 1 June, Brazilian health authorities placed two travellers in isolation in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro — one from DRC, one from Uganda — on suspicion of Ebola. Initial tests came back negative for both; the São Paulo patient remained intubated as of 2 June. Confirmation of either would mark the first cases of this outbreak outside Africa.
Response efforts are operating under significant constraints. Eastern DRC has been affected by armed conflict between government forces and various armed groups for more than three decades; insecurity is restricting access to affected communities and complicating contact tracing. Contact follow-up rates in Ituri have improved from around twenty-one percent in late May to roughly forty-four percent in early June; the WHO Director-General has said they need to reach about ninety percent to interrupt transmission. The outbreak was undetected for approximately four weeks before identification because initial samples were tested against the Zaire strain and returned negative; Bundibugyo was confirmed only after broader-spectrum testing was conducted. Health teams in Ituri have come under attack from the Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group linked to ISIL, and from local ethnic militias.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited DRC from 28 May, meeting Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka in Kinshasa before flying to Bunia on 30 May. There he opened a new Ebola treatment centre, honoured five recovered health workers, and pressed local leaders on community engagement. “DRC has faced Ebola before, sixteen times, and has ended every outbreak,” he told reporters in Bunia. “This is the seventeenth. That history gives me real confidence.” Tedros also linked the outbreak to wider regional pressure: nearly ten million people across Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tanganyika face acute hunger between January and June, and 26.5 million are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity across DRC. “Hunger and disease are old companions,” he said. “People weakened by hunger are far more vulnerable to infections.”
The international response has included a £20 million pledge from the United Kingdom government, a further $80 million in additional US aid announced in late May (bringing the US total commitment past $112 million), the deployment of WHO and Africa CDC rapid response teams, and the activation of the Africa CDC Emergency Operations Centre. The United States CDC has mobilised support to both ministries of health and issued travel advisories: Level 3 for DRC, Level 1 for Uganda. Uganda postponed its annual Martyrs' Day celebrations, which typically attract up to two million pilgrims, at the request of WHO. The Africa CDC director said in late May that a Bundibugyo-specific vaccine could be ready by the end of the year; WHO has identified several vaccine candidates promising enough to evaluate in clinical trials.
WHO has assessed the global risk of the outbreak as low. Regional risk is assessed as high. The risk inside the affected provinces of DRC is assessed as very high. Bundibugyo virus, like other Ebola strains, spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids of infected persons and does not transmit through casual contact or by air. The disease is most contagious in its later stages, when symptoms are severe; early symptoms (fever, headache, muscle pain, sore throat, fatigue) overlap with malaria and other endemic febrile illnesses, complicating early identification.
This is the seventeenth Ebola outbreak in DRC since the virus was first identified in 1976, and the first cross-border Bundibugyo outbreak since the strain was identified in Uganda in 2007. The previous DRC outbreak ended in December 2025, five months before this one was declared.
Sources
Case data and WHO declarations: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control update (3 June); US CDC situation summary (updated daily); WHO Disease Outbreak News on the DRC/Uganda outbreak; WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the 20 May media briefing.
Tedros visit and response context: Al Jazeera on Tedros's visit to Bunia (30 May); UN News on Tedros in DRC: 'You are not alone'; UN News on the Ebola outbreak colliding with hunger; ABC News on contact tracing rates and the suspected-case revision (3 June).
Brazil suspected cases: Bloomberg on the São Paulo suspected case; France 24 on Brazil isolating two suspected cases.
Regulatory and response context: US CDC Health Alert Network notice on the outbreak; Africa CDC news releases on the Emergency Operations Centre activation.
Strain and clinical context: South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases situation report; Wikipedia summary of the 2026 outbreak with linked primary sources.
Further Reading
For readers wanting to understand more about Ebola, the affected region, and the international public health response infrastructure, the following are useful starting points. Sources are drawn from international health bodies, African public health institutions, and on-the-ground reporting.
On Ebola virus disease, broadly: World Health Organization — Ebola virus disease fact sheet. The clearest single primer on the four species of Ebola virus, transmission, symptoms, treatment, and the history of outbreaks. Plain-language and authoritative.
On the Bundibugyo strain specifically: U.S. CDC on Ebola virus disease, including the Bundibugyo strain. Background on the four orthoebolavirus species, including the 2007 Uganda outbreak that gave Bundibugyo its name and the 2012 Isiro outbreak in DRC.
From the African public health perspective: Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The African Union's continental public health agency, which has been coordinating the continental response. Their situation reports give a view of the outbreak from the institutions doing the work on the ground.
On the situation in eastern DRC: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs — DRC. Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces have been affected by armed conflict and displacement for decades. Understanding the security and humanitarian context is essential to understanding why an Ebola response in this region is so much harder than it would be in a stable setting.
On the international vaccine and therapeutic landscape: Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The global partnership funding development of vaccines against epidemic-prone pathogens. Their portfolio includes Bundibugyo-specific vaccine candidates currently in pre-clinical and early-clinical development.
For the Pacific-region perspective on outbreak preparedness: Pacific Health Security Coalition. For readers in the Pacific, an outbreak in central Africa is geographically distant but operationally relevant — pandemic preparedness, travel surveillance, and supply chains for medical countermeasures are globally connected. Useful regional view.
For an investigative perspective on past outbreaks: The Atlantic — on how Ebola response infrastructure has evolved across recent outbreaks. Useful for context on what the international system has and has not learned across the 2014-16 West Africa epidemic and subsequent DRC outbreaks.