The World Health Organization on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, a designation intended to mobilize donor nations and coordinate an international response, after more than 330 suspected cases and nearly 90 deaths were recorded. The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare Ebola variant for which no approved vaccines or treatments exist, according to WHO.
The first known case, a 59-year-old man, developed symptoms on April 24 and died in an Ituri province hospital on April 27, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said. But health authorities were not alerted until May 5, by which time 50 deaths had already been recorded. The delay and the absence of an identified index case have left the outbreak’s true scale unknown. “This outbreak started in April. So far, we don’t know the index case. It means we don’t know how far is the magnitude of this outbreak,” Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told the Associated Press.
Containment has been complicated by armed violence in eastern Congo, where Congolese forces are fighting the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group and Islamic State-linked militants. The fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands, and constant population movement from mining has made contact tracing exceptionally difficult. On Sunday, the rebel government in Goma, the region’s largest city, confirmed its first Ebola case — an individual who had traveled from Ituri. Separately, WHO reported a laboratory-confirmed case in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital roughly 1,000 kilometers west of the epicenter, raising concerns about wider urban spread.
WHO and Congo’s health ministry have deployed a team of 35 experts and seven tons of emergency medical supplies to Bunia, the capital of Ituri province. Dr. Richard Kitenge, a Congolese public health official who recently arrived in the region, noted that the country has managed previous Ebola epidemics without approved treatments. “We have managed enough epidemics in the country without treatment. The Zaire virus, which we managed, was also untreated in several epidemics, and not everyone died,” Kitenge told the AP.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, acknowledged the uncertainty: “There are significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread associated with this event at the present time. In addition, there is limited understanding of the epidemiological links with known or suspected cases.” Kaseya said a high number of active cases remain in the community, particularly in the mining town of Mongwalu, “significantly complicating containment and contact tracing efforts.”
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the risk to Americans remains low. Dr. Satish Pillai, who is leading the agency’s outbreak response, said the CDC is deploying additional personnel to Congo and has issued travel advisories urging Americans in the region to avoid people with symptoms such as fever, muscle pain and rash. The agency is also implementing measures at U.S. ports of entry to identify symptomatic travelers, Pillai said.
WHO’s emergency declaration marks its latest alert; previous declarations, including the 2024 mpox emergency, were criticized for failing to quickly deliver diagnostic tests, medicines and vaccines to affected countries.