标签： Africa

The World Health Organization has escalated its public health risk assessment for the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, raising the national-level threat from “high” to “very high” in an official update released Friday.

During a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus outlined the tiered risk framework: while the outbreak poses a very high danger within DR Congo’s borders, it carries a high risk for the broader African region, and remains a low risk at the global scale. The WHO had already declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for the outbreak earlier this week, though it stopped short of classifying the event as a pandemic.

The outbreak is driven by Bundibugyo, an uncommon strain of Ebola that currently has no licensed, widely available vaccine, and claims the lives of roughly one out of every three people it infects. As of the latest update, the outbreak has recorded 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths across DR Congo, with 82 confirmed cases and seven confirmed fatalities. The virus has already spread beyond DR Congo’s borders: neighboring Uganda has reported two confirmed cases, linked to travelers from the affected DR Congo region, including one death. WHO officials noted that the situation in Uganda currently remains stable.

Unlike more common Ebola variants, the rarity of the Bundibugyo strain has left public health responders with far fewer established countermeasures to slow transmission, even though it is slightly less deadly than other Ebola types. Like all Ebola viruses, Bundibugyo originates in wild animal populations, most commonly fruit bats, and typically spills over to humans when individuals handle or consume contaminated bushmeat.

Compounding the public health challenge, persistent violence and instability in the conflict-affected eastern region of DR Congo has severely hampered outbreak response efforts. Dr. Tedros emphasized that building community trust is critical to containing the spread, noting a recent incident where angry relatives set fire to a local hospital after health workers declined to release an Ebola patient’s body over fears of viral contamination.

Amid the growing risk, research teams are racing to develop targeted vaccines for the strain. A team of scientists at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom is advancing a candidate vaccine that could be ready for human clinical trials in as little as two to three months. There is no guarantee the candidate will prove effective, however, as rigorous preclinical animal testing and human trials will be required to confirm safety and efficacy. A second experimental vaccine candidate is also in development, but that candidate is not expected to be ready for testing for six to nine months.

A rapidly escalating Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), driven by a rare, untreatable strain of the virus, has spurred urgent vaccine development work from a team of researchers at the University of Oxford, with the candidate potentially ready for field deployment within months.

The ongoing outbreak, centered in northeastern DRC, has already been linked to 750 suspected cases and 175 confirmed deaths, according to latest outbreak tracking data. The pathogen at the center of the crisis is Bundibugyo, an understudied Ebola species that has only caused two recorded outbreaks in the last 20 years and has no licensed, proven vaccine currently available. The virus kills roughly one-third of all people it infects, making swift containment a top global health priority.

In response to the crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) has upgraded the risk level of the outbreak from “high” to “very high” within DRC, with regional risk across central Africa also elevated to “high.” International risk remains low, however, and the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) over the outbreak over the weekend, explicitly noting that the event does not rise to the level of a pandemic.

Oxford’s vaccine candidate leverages the same ChAdOx1 platform the university’s vaccine group refined during the global COVID-19 pandemic – a flexible, easily adaptable genetic vaccine technology that can be rapidly modified to target new pathogens. During the COVID response, the platform was loaded with coronavirus genetic material; for this Ebola candidate, it has been reconfigured to carry genetic code from the Bundibugyo strain.

The platform relies on a modified chimpanzee common cold virus, genetically edited to be safe for human use, that delivers Bundibugyo genetic material to human cells. This trains the immune system to recognize and neutralize the actual Ebola virus if exposure occurs, without causing Ebola infection or symptomatic disease. Preclinical animal testing for the new candidate is already underway at Oxford’s facilities, and the Serum Institute of India has been pre-positioned to scale up mass manufacturing as soon as the university provides clinical-grade vaccine material.

Professor Sarah Lambe, head of vaccine immunology at the Oxford Vaccine Group, emphasized that speed is the top priority for the project. “People are worried about this outbreak, generally, you prepare for the worst case scenario – hopefully contact tracing and quarantine is all that’s needed, but we can’t take our foot off the gas,” Lambe told BBC News. Once the research team delivers initial starting material to the Serum Institute, Lambe noted that the manufacturer can ramp up production both quickly and at large scale. The WHO projects that the candidate could be ready for human clinical trials in affected regions within two to three months.

This outbreak poses unique challenges to global health responders because of the rarity of the Bundibugyo strain. Of the six known Ebola species, only three are known to cause large human outbreaks, and Bundibugyo had not been detected in more than a decade prior to this event – its last outbreak occurred in DRC in 2012, following an initial 2007 outbreak in Uganda. While existing effective vaccines are available for the more common Zaire Ebola strain, none have been approved for Bundibugyo. A separate experimental Bundibugyo candidate is also in development, but that effort is not expected to produce testable doses for another six to nine months, making Oxford’s accelerated timeline a critical asset for outbreak response.

If authorized, the vaccine will not be deployed in mass public vaccination campaigns like COVID-19 vaccines. Instead, it will be used in the targeted ring vaccination strategy standard for Ebola outbreaks, which prioritizes immunization for people at highest exposure risk: close contacts of confirmed cases, and frontline healthcare workers treating infected patients. The Oxford team had already been working on related vaccine candidates for other dangerous filoviruses, including Sudan ebolavirus and Marburg virus, prior to this outbreak, allowing them to adapt their work rapidly to address the new Bundibugyo emergency.

GENEVA, Switzerland – In a stark update delivered to reporters on Friday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced a troubling escalation of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, raising the national risk assessment from high to the most severe tier of “very high” amid evidence of accelerating transmission.

Tedros clarified that while the domestic risk has worsened, the threat of regional spillover still holds at a high level, and the global risk of widespread Ebola spread remains categorized as low. Official counts place the number of confirmed cases at 82, with seven confirmed fatalities recorded so far, but the WHO leader emphasized that the true scale of the epidemic far outpaces these confirmed numbers. Currently, more than 750 additional cases are classified as suspected, with 177 suspected deaths linked to the outbreak across affected areas of the country.

Neighboring Uganda has so far avoided widespread community transmission, with the situation there remaining classified as stable. Two confirmed Ebola cases have been recorded in the country, both tied to travel from the DRC, and one of those patients has died.

The rapidly deteriorating situation has prompted immediate action from the global humanitarian community. Earlier on Friday, the United Nations confirmed it had disbursed $60 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund, a reserve pool of emergency funding designated to speed up outbreak response efforts across the DRC and the broader Great Lakes region. The United States also announced a pledge of $23 million in new funding to support response operations in both the DRC and Uganda, alongside a plan to finance the construction of up to 50 new Ebola treatment clinics across affected zones in both countries.

Notably, Ugandan health authorities have publicly stated that they have no knowledge of planned U.S.-funded treatment centers being established within their borders, creating a small point of discrepancy in the announcement of international support.

Nestled in the heart of East Africa, the “Land of a Thousand Hills” Rwanda draws visitors with its sweeping green mountain slopes, but this same dramatic terrain creates unique public health challenges for its population. For millions of Rwandans, daily life requires traversing steep, winding mountain paths for hours at a time, a routine that gradually wears down joints, muscles and musculoskeletal health over years.

A high-stakes diplomatic gathering intended to strengthen ties between India and the entire African continent has been called off at the eleventh hour, derailed by the spreading Ebola outbreak currently impacting the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The fourth iteration of the India-Africa Forum Summit, which was slated to take place in New Delhi between May 28 and 31 after more than a decade since the last convening, will be rescheduled for a later date, according to a joint statement released Thursday by the Indian government and the African Union.

The joint announcement cited the rapidly worsening public health crisis unfolding across central Africa as the core reason for the delay, noting that a new confirmed date for the summit will be made public once the outbreak is under control. This decision comes just days after the World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the current outbreak to the highest level of global alert: a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

As of the latest WHO update, the outbreak has already recorded 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths across affected regions. To date, all reported infections have been restricted to the African continent, but public health experts have warned that this outbreak presents unique and unprecedented challenges. Unlike previous Ebola events, the current outbreak is driven by a rare strain of the virus for which no licensed vaccine currently exists, and the epicenter of the spread is located in a conflict-impacted region, complicating rapid response and containment efforts.

Ebola is a severe, often fatal viral illness that originates in animal populations, most commonly fruit bats. Spillover into human populations typically occurs when humans handle or consume infected wild animals. After an incubation period ranging from two to 21 days, symptoms emerge abruptly, beginning with flu-like indicators including fever, headache, and fatigue. As the virus progresses, patients develop severe vomiting and diarrhea, often progressing to organ failure. A subset of patients also experience internal and external bleeding. The virus spreads between humans through direct contact with infected bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit.

Historically, Ebola outbreaks were small and easily contained to remote, sparsely populated rural areas. But experts note that accelerating urbanization has pushed growing human populations closer to the natural reservoirs of the Ebola virus, steadily increasing the risk of future spillover events and large-scale outbreaks.

Even though no confirmed Ebola cases have been detected within India’s borders to date, national health authorities have moved quickly to implement preventive measures. On Thursday, India’s Directorate General of Health Services released an official public health advisory for all passengers arriving from or transiting through Ebola-affected nations. The advisory directs travelers to immediately contact airport health officials and seek urgent medical care if they develop any characteristic Ebola symptoms within 21 days of travel, or if they have had close direct contact with a confirmed or suspected infected person.