2026 DRC Bundibugyo virus outbreak

About this outbreak

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's 17th Ebola outbreak since 1976 and only the third recorded Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak, after Uganda in 2007 and the DRC's Isiro cluster in 2012. First signalled from Mongbwalu Health Zone in Ituri Province at the end of April 2026 and confirmed by the INRB laboratory in Kinshasa on 14 May, it became a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 17 May and, by August, the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the DRC and the second-largest on record anywhere, exceeded only by the 2013–2016 West Africa epidemic. It has spread across seven of the DRC's 26 provinces — Ituri, North Kivu, Haut-Uélé, Tshopo, Bas-Uélé, South Kivu and, since 10 September, Sud-Ubangi — with imported cases in Uganda, whose outbreak has been declared over, and France; two patients diagnosed in the DRC were treated in Germany. There is no licensed vaccine and no specific therapeutic for Bundibugyo virus: the Zaire-strain vaccine Ervebo is being given to health workers within a research protocol, and overt bleeding appears in only about 10% of cases, delaying isolation. The outbreak remains active.