分类： health

BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo – On a Sunday visit to this Ituri provincial capital at the center of an ongoing rare Ebola outbreak, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced a small, hopeful milestone: five patients have successfully recovered from infection with the Bundibugyo virus, a rare strain of Ebola with no approved vaccine or specific treatment.

Tedros made the announcement during the official inauguration of a new Ebola treatment facility in Bunia, noting that four of the recovered patients would be discharged on the day of his announcement, with a fifth having been released two days prior. The first confirmed recovery of a Bundibugyo patient in this current outbreak was documented by WHO just two days earlier, a breakthrough that health officials are emphasizing to counter widespread public fear around the often-fatal virus.

“Of course, we’re still working on developing targeted vaccines and treatments, but that doesn’t mean that people cannot recover from Ebola,” Tedros told attendees at the opening event. He stressed that early care seeking is critical to survival, urging community members to access medical support immediately after developing symptoms. “If you come to health facilities when you have symptoms, you can get the support and recover, so the key is to come forward as early as possible and to get the necessary support,” he added.

As of the latest official counts, the outbreak has recorded 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths across the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak has already spilled over into neighboring Uganda, where the Ugandan Ministry of Health confirmed nine cases and one death as of last Friday.

Despite the opening of new treatment infrastructure and the arrival of additional international aid, the virus is still spreading faster than public health responders can contain it, medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned in a statement Saturday. The group called for urgent expansion of diagnostic testing, faster deployment of trained outbreak response personnel, and guaranteed consistent access for medical supply shipments into affected regions.

Response efforts face two major layers of security and community barriers. First, long-running local conflict over access to health measures: local residents have expressed intense anger over mandatory Ebola body management protocols, which conflict with traditional local burial customs. This public frustration has boiled over into at least three separate attacks on local health centers, putting response teams at severe risk. Second, widespread armed conflict across eastern Congo has further disrupted operations. In Ituri, the Islamic State-aligned Allied Democratic Forces rebel group carries out regular attacks, while to the south in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces – where the outbreak has also been detected – the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel militia controls major urban centers including Goma and Bukavu. Two cases have already been recorded in areas under M23 control.

To overcome these barriers, Tedros emphasized that sustained community engagement is non-negotiable for a successful response. “We can stop this Ebola and anyone who has it can also recover. But the rule … is this thing is everybody’s business and every citizen should be involved,” he said.

Local health leaders echoed the call for collective action while leaning into the recent recovery news to reinforce public hope. “The final message we would like to share with the Ituri community is that there is hope,” said Pierre Akilimali, Incident Manager at Congo’s National Institute of Public Health, during the treatment center’s inauguration. “With the symptomatic treatment that we are currently providing, we are seeing patients recover.”

Davin Ambitapio, a senior doctor at the new Bunia facility, added that the outbreak is far from insurmountable with coordinated support. “We truly have hope. The virus here is not as complicated as those we have dealt with in the past, and with the support of all our partners, we believe we will be able to bring this outbreak under control as quickly as possible,” he said.

Reporting for this story was contributed by Banchereau from Dakar, Senegal.

Two weeks after the Democratic Republic of Congo officially declared an Ebola outbreak, international medical and public health authorities are sounding the alarm over an unprecedented rate of spread that has outpaced current response efforts. The epicenter of the outbreak is the northeastern Congolese province of Ituri, where transmission has already outstripped every recorded early-stage Ebola event in modern history.

In a public statement released Saturday, Dr. Alan Gonzalez, deputy director of medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), described the unfolding situation as deeply alarming. “Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration,” Gonzalez emphasized, adding that frontline MSF teams on the ground have observed that response operations have not yet matched the speed of the virus’s advance. He warned that the full extent of the crisis remains unclear: hundreds of test samples from suspected patients are still backlogged and unprocessed, even as new potential infections are reported every single day.

Gonzalez also outlined significant logistical barriers delaying critical containment work and aid delivery, pointing to widespread border and airport closures as major disruptive constraints. These challenges compound long-standing issues created by ongoing armed conflict in the region, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly flagged as a major barrier to mounting an effective response.

As of the latest updates, more than 1,000 suspected Ebola cases have been recorded across DR Congo, with at least 246 confirmed deaths linked to the outbreak. The virus has also spilled over the country’s northern border into neighboring Uganda, where nine confirmed cases and one fatality have been reported to date.

Over the weekend, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled personally to Ituri to oversee and assess local containment efforts. Speaking after his arrival, Tedros explained that the WHO delegation was in the province to evaluate response progress and address unmet needs that are slowing control work. He called for greater engagement of local communities in outbreak response, noting that residents have on-the-ground knowledge that is critical to successfully curbing transmission. “They understand the problems better and they know the solution as well,” he said of local populations.

One of Tedros’ first official stops during the visit was the National Institute for Biomedical Research laboratory in Bunia, Ituri’s provincial capital, where all samples from suspected Ebola patients are now processed. Local health authorities confirmed that the newly operational local testing facility can deliver confirmed results to care teams within 24 hours, a major improvement that allows clinicians to quickly isolate infected patients and initiate life-saving care. Prior to the opening of this lab, samples had to be transported more than 1,500 kilometers to Kinshasa, DR Congo’s capital, for testing — delays that put communities at greater risk of further spread and cost vulnerable patients critical care time.

The current outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo, a rare strain of Ebola for which no widely proven vaccine currently exists. The virus has an average case fatality rate of roughly one-third, meaning approximately one in every three infected people will die from the disease. Like all Ebola strains, Bundibugyo originally circulates in wild animal populations, most commonly fruit bats; human outbreaks typically begin when people come into contact with or consume meat from infected animals.

Amid an unprecedentedly rapid resurgence of a rare Ebola variant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern region, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled Saturday to Bunia, the urban center at the heart of the ongoing outbreak, to assess response efforts and engage with frontline stakeholders.

The rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola driving this outbreak has no officially approved vaccine or targeted treatment, putting global and local health teams in an unenviable position as they work to slow transmission. Official WHO data puts the current count at 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths across the DRC, with neighboring Uganda confirming nine cases and one fatality as of Friday, according to Uganda’s ministry of health.

During his visit, Tedros was scheduled to tour a local Ebola treatment facility, hold talks with provincial and national government leaders, and speak directly to frontline health workers and families directly impacted by the virus. Speaking to reporters Friday after a meeting with DRC Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka, Tedros emphasized that containing the outbreak requires directing every possible resource to the epicenter. “This is a difficult situation, and we recognize that. But the Democratic Republic of Congo has faced the Ebola virus many times before. We are confident that it can once again bring this outbreak under control,” he noted.

Fresh international aid has begun arriving in recent days: the European Union dispatched a shipment of medical supplies to Ituri province, where Bunia is located, on Thursday, with additional shipments on the way. The United States also announced an additional $80 million in emergency aid the same day, bringing Washington’s total commitment to response efforts to more than $112 million. On the ground, Associated Press reporters observed that response coordination at Bunia’s Rwampara Clinic and General Hospital has improved, with expanded staffing, additional personal protective equipment and critical medical supplies now in place — even as new patients continue to arrive around the clock.

Despite these incremental gains, emergency medical groups warn that response efforts are still failing to keep up with the fastest-moving Ebola outbreak recorded in modern history. In a statement released Saturday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Deputy Operations Director Dr. Alan Alan Gonzalez underscored the severity of the gap, saying: “Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration. Nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak.” Gonzalez called for urgent action to expand testing capacity, speed up the deployment of trained response personnel, and secure uninterrupted, consistent access to critical medical supplies across affected areas.

Multiple overlapping barriers continue to derail response work. Local resentment over strict Ebola body management protocols, which conflict with traditional local burial customs, has already spurred at least three separate attacks on health facilities treating patients, putting frontline workers at extreme risk. Ongoing armed conflict in the region further complicates access: the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel faction with ties to the Islamic State, and a coalition of ethnic militias carry out regular attacks across Ituri. The outbreak has also spread south to the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls major population centers including Goma and Bukavu. Two cases have already been recorded among rebel-held territories there.

In response to the cross-border spread of the virus, both Uganda and Rwanda have sealed their borders with the DRC, and the Trump administration last week implemented an entry ban on non-U.S. passport holders who have recently traveled to the DRC, Uganda or South Sudan. Tedros pushed back against these restrictive measures Friday, arguing that border closures and travel bans do nothing to stop transmission and actually undermine transparency. “Closing borders, as some countries have done, only discourages transparency. The Democratic Republic of Congo is reporting the situation openly and transparently,” he said, urging governments that have implemented restrictions to reverse course.

This report was contributed to by AP reporters based in Dakar, Senegal and Bonn, Germany.

Beneath the bustle of Kinshasa’s sprawling Masina Market, a quiet, high-stakes trade continues nearly unabated: the sale of wild meat from the Congo Basin’s vast ancient forests. Unlike the openly displayed buckets of squirming edible caterpillars tended by market women, most exotic wild game — from giant swamp rodents to severed antelope carcasses — stays hidden, only brought out for customers who know to ask. For millions across Central and West Africa, wild meat, locally called *viande de brousse*, is far more than sustenance: it is a deeply ingrained cultural tradition, a primary source of affordable animal protein, and a livelihood for thousands of small-scale vendors. Even the ongoing deadly Ebola outbreak ravaging remote eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has done little to curb steady consumer demand for the forest-sourced product.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — As frontline medical teams grapple with cascading challenges ranging from critical equipment shortages to community distrust and active armed conflict, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus touched down in Congo’s capital Kinshasa late Thursday to personally observe the response to a rare strain of Ebola outbreak.

In remarks to reporters gathered at Kinshasa’s airport, Tedros emphasized that his in-person visit was intended to send a clear message to affected communities: they are not facing this public health emergency alone. “Issuing directives from a comfortable office in Geneva is simple, but I am asking my staff to work side-by-side with local communities, and asking communities to take steps to protect themselves,” he explained. “My presence here reflects that shared commitment.”

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo Ebola virus — a subtype with no currently approved vaccine or targeted treatment — has already spread across three northeastern Congolese provinces, centered on Ituri province. As of this week, WHO data records 1,077 suspected cases and 238 suspected deaths across the affected region.

Frontline response efforts have been severely undermined by a crippling lack of critical supplies. In multiple hard-hit areas, overstretched health workers have even been forced to rely on expired personal protective equipment, including medical masks, when interacting with suspected patients.

Community tensions have further complicated containment work. Stringent infection control protocols for handling Ebola victims’ bodies directly conflict with long-held local burial traditions, sparking anger among residents that has boiled over into at least three separate attacks on local health facilities. Tedros highlighted two other major barriers to stopping the outbreak’s spread: mass population displacement caused by decades of armed conflict in the region, and widespread acute food insecurity.

A day ahead of his arrival in Kinshasa, Tedros issued an urgent call for a ceasefire in the conflict-torn northeast, arguing that public health work cannot proceed amid ongoing violence. “We cannot build community trust or isolate infected patients while bombs are falling,” he said.

Ituri province, located in northeastern DRC near the Ugandan border, has been plagued by sustained violence from the Allied Democratic Force (ADF), a rebel faction linked to the Islamic State, alongside a coalition of ethnic militias. Just weeks ago, early May attacks by the ADF left at least 40 people dead and destroyed dozens of civilian homes in the province.

The outbreak has also been detected in North Kivu and South Kivu, provinces south of Ituri where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group holds control over major urban centers including Goma and Bukavu. Two cases of the virus have already been confirmed among rebel fighters in the region.

Goma’s main airport, a critical logistical hub that coordinates most humanitarian aid deliveries into northeastern DRC, has remained closed since M23 forces seized the city in January 2025. The ongoing conflict in eastern DRC has already spawned one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes, forcing more than 7 million people from their homes across the region.

There was some positive development Thursday, however: a shipment of medical aid donated by the European Union arrived in Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak. Hours earlier, the United States announced an additional $80 million in emergency assistance for the response, bringing Washington’s total commitment to the effort to more than $112 million.

During his Kinshasa press briefing, Tedros also pushed back against travel restrictions imposed by multiple countries in response to the outbreak, urging nations against implementing broad entry bans. “There are effective ways to manage risk and screen cases without imposing harsh, broad travel restrictions, and as an organization, we do not encourage that approach,” he stated.

The Trump administration recently drew criticism for its new restrictions: last week, it announced a temporary entry ban for non-US citizens and non-green card holders who have traveled to outbreak-affected nations including Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan within the previous 21 days. On Wednesday, the administration further announced that US citizens exposed to Ebola would be quarantined at a new facility in Kenya, rather than being repatriated to the United States for isolation. Congo’s neighboring countries, Uganda and Rwanda, have also recently closed their shared borders in response to the outbreak.

Reporting for this story was contributed by Banchereau from Dakar, Senegal.