Ebola Bundigugyo — Another Test for African and Global Resilience

On 15 May 2026, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced the seventeenth Ebola Disease outbreak in the country, with Ebola Bundigugyo occurring in Rwampara, Mongwalu, and Bunia HZ. Quickly declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the virus continues to spread throughout DRC and neighboring Uganda, with a mounting number of both suspected and confirmed cases. Rani and RANA are monitoring the outbreak, interacting with leaders, and bringing together civil society to both drive an urgent, equity-driven response to the outbreak and recommit political attention and investment to tackle epidemics and pandemics nationally, regionally, and globally.

Situation update – 2 June 2026

On 15 May 2026, the DRC confirmed a new outbreak of Ebola in its north-eastern Ituri Province with 246 suspected cases and 65 reported deaths. On 17 May 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreakin the DRC and Uganda a PHEIC under the International Health Regulations (IHRs), signalling that the outbreak was ‘potentially much larger’ than detected and reported, with significant risk of spread.’ The WHO calls the speed and scale of the outbreak urgent and concerning, assessing the risk of the epidemic as high at national and regional levels, and low at the global level. As of 27 May 2026, a total of 906 suspected cases and 223 deaths among the suspected cases have been reported in the DRC. As of 29 May 2026, a total of 134 confirmed cases – including 9 in Uganda – with 18 deaths, have been reported across both countries.

This Ebola outbreak is especially concerning as there appears to have been significant delays in detection and reporting, which contributed to the very high initial case count as outbreaks are usually caught earlier. WHO’s initial field testing – which only detects the Zaire strain of Ebola – resulted in negative results for the virus. It was only when samples were tested at the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Kinshasa that Ebola Bundibugyo was detected.

Africa CDC, WHO, and other key partners are coordinating responses, including surveillance, laboratory support, prevention and control, risk communication, and resource mobilisation. But complicating action: while there is a vaccine for Ebola Zaire, vaccines and treatments for Ebola Bundibugyo do not yet exist. Conflicts in the DRC continue to exacerbate instability, making it more difficult to effectively respond. Significant cuts to official development assistance from traditional global health donors have also reduced on-the-ground capacity for disease detection and response.

The structural weaknesses beneath the immediate crisis

As the recent CSO boot camp in Nairobi reaffirmed, the trajectory of the current Ebola outbreak points to enduring systemic vulnerabilities.

Most African countries’ disease surveillance architecture remains fragmented and donor-dependent. A lot of capacity is limited to disease detection defined by funding by external partners and often tied to specific pathogens or time-limited programmes. Funding arrangements are often at the mercy of the shifting priorities of donor countries, and can evaporate when funding cycles end. The staffing shortages and closed healthcare facilities on the frontlines of the Ebola outbreak in DRC are one consequence.

RANA and rani partners have raised concerns that surveillance operates too often at the edges of the health system rather than through it. A robust outbreak detection system needs to extend to pharmacies, local clinics, community health workers, and traditional healers, who are often the first point of contact when illness begins. Unusual spikes in fever medication sales or unexplained deaths in a community can be early warning signals – but only if someone is watching for them and has the means and network to escalate a concern rapidly.

Underpinning all of this is the challenge of public trust. We have witnessed scenes from DRC where citizens have invaded treatment centers demanding to have the bodies of their relatives who have succumbed to Ebola. In Kenya, there has been public resistance to the establishment of Ebola treatment centers. These are the enabling conditions in which a single undetected case can become a transmission cluster.

Recommendations

Urgent action – from African and global leaders – is required to contain the Ebola Bundigugyo outbreak and prevent further spread throughout the African continent. The outbreak must also be a wake-up call post COVID-19, that actions and investments in epidemic and pandemic preparedness are still vitally needed to safeguard global health security.

1. Increase attention and investment in non-vaccine interventions. Interventions that can help curb the spread of Ebola at the community level need to be prioritised and funded – especially as no countermeasures to prevent or treat this strain of the virus currently exist. Interventions must include enhancing community-based surveillance efforts; increased access to sophisticated diagnostics; water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions; and scaled up efforts to raise public awareness about the disease, understand community needs, and prevent the spread of infection.

2. Improve the information and guidance provided to communities.
   The public needs detailed, accurate, actionable guidance – not just reassurance that no cases have been confirmed. People need to know what symptoms to watch for, when and where to seek care, who to call, and what will happen when they do. The absence of that clarity is itself a public health risk.

3. Increase community leadership and trust to counter dis-information and encourage early access to medical care.
   Community leadership and engagement will be vital to curbing this outbreak. WHO, Africa CDC, and government leadership must prioritise community engagement to build trust in the response and drive partnerships that put community needs front and center. Trusted relationships between medical officials and communities will be essential to counter mis- and dis-information that is already challenging the frontline response, and to encourage community members to seek medical care early – which has proven to help people recover from Ebola Bundigugyo.

4. Enhance R&D for emerging infectious diseases with action to streamline novel countermeasure approval and introduction. 
   The lack of therapeutics and point-of-care diagnostics for Ebola Bundigugyo underscores the continued need to prioritise and fund research and development (R&D) for a broad range of countermeasures to detect, treat, and prevent emerging infectious diseases. Too often, there are limited countermeasure candidates in the pipeline to accelerate a rapid response. Coordination to streamline Emergency Use Authorization/Emergency Use Licensing/Pre Qualification will be vital, as well as increased regulatory harmonisation across African countries, including through the African Medicines Agency (AMA). Affected communities need to be part of the full process to build relationships, trust, and mutual understanding ahead of any rollout.

5. Increase sustainable financing for epidemic and pandemic threats.
   Once the immediate outbreak subsides, all avenues must be explored to advance long-term, sustainable funding mechanisms to strengthen Africa’s – and the world’s – ability to respond swiftly to public health threats. Recent reductions in official development assistance, including for disease detection and response, jeopardise the very systems the world needs to prevent outbreaks from spreading and becoming pandemics. In addition to global leaders reassessing international investments as vital to shared stability and prosperity, African leaders must continue to find innovative ways to mobilise domestic and regional financing to bridge new and future funding gaps in preparedness.