DRC Ebola Outbreak Passes 4,000 Cases, WHO Chief in Kinshasa

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has crossed the threshold of four thousand confirmed cases, and World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has traveled to Kinshasa to support the response to the largest outbreak of the disease in the country’s history. For Europe, that number is not a distant statistic: in a report dated August 1, the WHO recorded one confirmed case in France and two patients who were diagnosed in Congo and then treated in Germany, and on August 18 the Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations is set to meet, a body whose temporary recommendations apply to all signatory states, Serbia among them.

The WHO is currently advising against travel or trade restrictions on the affected countries, and rates the risk to the rest of the world as low.

The numbers keep changing week to week

According to figures released by Congolese authorities on August 7, the country has recorded 4,053 confirmed cases, 1,850 deaths and 793 recoveries. The outbreak has been detected in 53 health zones across five provinces: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Upper Uele and Tshopo. Ituri, in the country’s northeast, accounts for 86.9 percent of all confirmed cases.

A week earlier, the picture looked different. In its Disease Outbreak News report published on August 1, the WHO listed 3,626 confirmed cases as of July 30, including 20 in Uganda and one in France, with a case fatality rate of 44 percent. The same document placed the outbreak in historical context:

This is now the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the country.

The previous record belonged to the 2018 to 2020 outbreak, which killed about 2,300 people out of roughly 3,500 recorded cases.

Why is this outbreak spreading faster than previous ones?

The cause is the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is neither an approved vaccine nor an approved treatment. That marks a key difference from the outbreak six years ago: back then, eastern Congo was hit by the Zaire strain, against which the Ervebo vaccine had already been licensed and could be deployed immediately.

A comparison with the West African outbreak of 2014 to 2016 shows how different the pace is. That outbreak, in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, remains the largest ever recorded, with more than 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths, and it took eight months to reach a thousand deaths. The Congolese outbreak, declared on May 15, 2026, crossed the same threshold in under three months.

Contact tracing can no longer keep up with the virus

Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director General Jean Kaseya visited Bunia, a city near the epicenter, on August 4 and reported there that 60 to 70 percent of new cases are now coming from community transmission rather than from lists of tracked contacts. His assessment was blunt:

Contact tracing is not working, we do not like the trajectory of this outbreak, and it is already the second largest outbreak in the world.

Two days later, at an online briefing on August 6, Kaseya said the official case and death counts could be underestimates and announced research into whether the virus has mutated and what else might be driving the faster spread. He named insufficient engagement with affected communities, not a lack of funding, as the main weakness in the response. That same day, after visiting Kinshasa, Tedros wrote on social media: “Community ownership must be at the heart of the response.”

Health workers are paying a price too

In its August 1 report, the WHO listed 151 confirmed cases among health workers, including 44 deaths, a fatality rate of 29 percent. In Mongbwalu, one of the hardest hit towns, workers issued an ultimatum over unpaid wages, and an earlier strike over working conditions was held in Bunia.

Three tracks, no approved vaccine yet

Kaseya announced that the response is moving on three fronts while formal trials continue:

• expanding the use of Ervebo, the vaccine licensed against the Zaire strain, to the population of Ituri and North Kivu
• a candidate vaccine from Oxford University and the Serum Institute of India, whose first phase of clinical trials began on July 24 in the UK
• a candidate vaccine from Moderna, whose first trial phase is expected to start in Canada

On June 6, the WHO rated the risk from the outbreak as very high for the Democratic Republic of Congo, high for Uganda and its neighboring countries, and low for the rest of the African region and the world. That assessment is being updated ahead of the Emergency Committee’s session on August 18, and it will determine whether the temporary recommendations issued to signatory states on May 22 are tightened.