The Ebola virus is spreading at an unprecedented rate this year.
In the first five months since the outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 9,415 confirmed cases and 4,536 deaths in the country. Although the virus has remained relatively contained at the DRC’s borders, the number of cases in neighboring Kenya and Uganda is also increasing (albeit more slowly). There are 20 confirmed cases in Uganda and eight in Kenya, and much of central and east Africa has tightened its borders.
The last major Ebola outbreak of this magnitude began in 2014 and continued until 2016 in West Africa. During this period, it ultimately killed more than 11,000 people across West Africa. Nearly four years later, a smaller outbreak hit Congo’s North Kivu region, causing 2,229 deaths before it was brought under control.
The 2026 crisis has not yet reached the same levels as the 2014 epidemic, but its spread is much faster.
As the graph below shows, approximately 150 days after the outbreak was declared, 2,599 cases of Ebola had been reported during the 2014 West African outbreak. At the same time this year, the number of cases stood at 8,978 and continues to rise.
There is no simple explanation for this rapid spread
One reason the latest outbreak has been so difficult to slow can be attributed to the fact that it is a different virus strain – known as Bundibugyo – than the one that caused previous outbreaks.
The Bundibugyo virus comes from the same family as the Ebola virus which caused the 2014 epidemics in West Africa and 2018 in Congo, causing the deadly fevers associated with Ebola. But this rare strain is different enough to not respond to the same medical solutions. Although the Zaire virus has led to vaccines and treatments to mitigate its spread, we still do not have a vaccine for Bundibugyo.
This does not mean that Bundibugyo is entirely new. The 2026 outbreak is the third outbreak linked to the Bundibugyo virus strain: in 2007, Uganda faced a minor outbreak, and Congo’s eastern province, which is now the epicenter of the outbreak, saw a handful of cases in 2012.
Fortunately, both outbreaks were contained within a matter of months, largely due to the efforts of the country’s Ministry of Health and international aid partnerships with the WHO, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and international humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Red Cross.
More than a decade later, these efforts have been significantly hampered by USAID budget cuts. Tracing requires physical testing capacity: the tests themselves, health workers, and protective equipment for those treating suspected cases. Reduced access to these resources is particularly dangerous with strains like Bundibugyo – in the absence of an effective vaccine, tracking the spread of the disease and isolating potential contacts of the disease is particularly important.
But cuts in aid, which covers disease surveillance efforts, made it harder to identify this year’s Bundibugyo outbreak until it was too late, creating a “critical detection gap of four weeks between the appearance of symptoms of the suspected index case… and laboratory confirmation of the outbreak,” according to a May WHO situation report.
In August, the United States sought to fill at least part of the gap it had left, providing an additional $242 million over its initial pledge of $23 million in May.
In addition to international efforts, the DRC faces an additional level of internal conflict and humanitarian crisis. The eastern provinces, including Ituri, have experienced years of conflict which have weakened public infrastructure, particularly the health system. Last year, nearly 25 percent of the Congolese population faced food insecurity and 4.5 million children suffered from clinical malnutrition, creating a population particularly vulnerable to disease. The violence has also overwhelmed hospitals and displaced millions of people, disrupting the public health response, especially as distrust of health authorities is also endemic.
Even though emergency trials of a vaccine are underway, many of the factors that facilitated the rapid spread may make treatment and awareness even more difficult. It is difficult to predict when the current outbreak will be brought under control and how many more people will be affected before it is.
Gn Health
