WHO’s representative in the DRC, Dr. Anne Ancia, told reporters in Geneva that there are more than 500 suspected cases, including 130 suspected deaths, but that only 30 cases have been confirmed in the country so far.
The agency is working closely with authorities and is rushing more test kits to eastern DRC to identify cases of infection with the Bundibugyo virus, a type of Ebola virus for which there are no vaccines or therapeutics.
“We have significant uncertainty about the number of infections and how far the virus has spread,” said Dr. Ancia.
Early cases
Dr. Speaking from Bunia in Ituri province, where cases were initially detected, Ancia said the outbreak has also reached North Kivu with confirmed cases in Butembo and Goma. Uganda has also confirmed two imported cases.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday morning. He has expressed concern about the “scale and speed of the epidemic”.
There is still uncertainty about how and where the outbreak started.
“I don’t think we have ‘patient zero’ for now,” said Dr. Ancia. “What we know now is that on May 5 there was … a person who died in Bunia. The body was brought back [to] Mongbwalu…and put a coffin in. And then the family decided that the coffin was not worth the person. And so…they changed the coffin. And then there was the funeral, and that’s where it started.”
The discovery of the initial cases was slowed by the fact that local tests in Bunia showed negative results for the Zaire strain of Ebola. The wide range of symptoms – fever, fatigue, diarrhea and vomiting – also complicated the task of making a quick diagnosis, with the added difficulty that the nosebleeds also associated with the disease did not begin until day five of the infection, the WHO official explained.
Kinshasa breakthrough
In the end, it was only through testing in Kinshasa that the presence of Bundibugyo virus was finally revealed.
Dr. Ancia said there is focus internationally on potential candidate vaccines or treatments that could help fight the outbreak. A WHO technical advisory group was scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon “to make further recommendations to WHO and its member states on which potential vaccine should be prioritized,” she explained.
Ervebo, a vaccine against the Zaire Ebola virus, is under consideration, the WHO representative said, but “it would take two months before it is available”.
While a vaccine can provide additional prevention and protection to affected populations, the key to limiting infection lies in grassroots work in local communities to raise awareness, combat misinformation and ensure compliance with sanitation measures, particularly around funerals.
“If we use coercive measures and the population does not agree, we will see bodies disappear. We will see suspected cases refusing to come to the hospitals and health facilities,” Dr Ancia warned, stressing the continued engagement of health workers with schools, churches and community leaders.
WHO is supporting the government-led response with more than 40 health professionals on the ground and through the deployment of supplies and additional diagnostic capacity in what remains a “highly complex epidemiological, operational and humanitarian context” characterized by insecurity and displacement, the WHO representative said.
IDP vulnerability
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that the affected provinces of Ituri and North Kivu are home to more than two million internally displaced people and returnees, while health capacity remains weakened by conflict.
There is also concern for refugees living in the affected areas. In Ituri, around 11,000 South Sudanese refugees need preventive assistance, while more than 2,000 Rwandan and Burundian refugees in North Kivu’s capital, the rebel-held city of Goma, need sanitary supplies.
The most recent outbreak of the Ebola Zaire virus in the DRC ended in December 2025, and the trauma of a major epidemic in North Kivu and Ituri in 2018-19 continues among the population.
Dr. Ancia emphasized that while it may be two months before a vaccine is available, “it is not two months before the outbreak will happen”.
“Remember the last one, it took two years,” she warned.
