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.