Ebola in DR Congo: over 670 confirmed cases and 136 deaths, outbreak spreads to new health zones

The figures of the outbreak and the role of health zones

The Congolese health system is organized into over 500 health zones nationwide. A health zone, in the country's system, comprises a network of clinics and a reference hospital serving approximately 100,000-150,000 people. The current outbreak was officially declared about a month ago and is affecting the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu.

The majority of cases are still concentrated in the province of Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak. However, according to a government report, the new health zones affected are located in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. Although most of the infections recorded in North Kivu and South Kivu involve people coming from Ituri, cases of local transmission in these provinces are now also documented.

Bundibugyo: a virus with no vaccine or specific therapy

One element complicating the health response is the current absence of a vaccine or specific therapy for the Bundibugyo virus, a relative of the Ebola virus. This scientific gap makes containing the chain of transmission even more urgent, but the activities of armed groups and militias in the territory, along with ongoing fighting and the large number of displaced people, are hampering interventions, le Polain explained.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has raised an alarm about the indirect consequences of the outbreak. The organization has warned that numerous families, for fear of contagion in clinics, are giving up routine visits or taking their sick children to the doctor. "Die Gefahr sei, dass mehr Kinder sterben" — the concrete risk, according to Unicef, is that a greater number of children will die due to the avoidance of health facilities.

Unicef's alarm: children at risk due to fear of clinics

The nutritional situation in the province of Ituri further worsens the picture. According to data reported in the article, more than half of children under five in the province of Ituri are undernourished, a factor that increases vulnerability to infections and complicates the care of young patients.

The DR Congo has a history of devastating Ebola outbreaks. The country has already faced several waves, including the second largest in the world between 2018 and 2020, which caused more than 2,200 deaths. The memory of that outbreak, the second largest globally, weighs on current response strategies, even though the virus responsible — Bundibugyo — presents significant differences.

A health system already weakened and hampered by conflicts

The Congolese health system, already weakened before the outbreak, is now under additional pressure due to the current flare-up. Local health facilities, lacking adequate resources, are struggling to cope with both Ebola cases and the usual demand for basic care. The combination of fragile infrastructure, insecurity, and mass displacement makes it extremely difficult to reach affected communities, le Polain stressed.

The case and death data were released by the health minister on the platform X and subsequently taken up by the WHO and international media. The real-time transmission of information by the ministry represents an element of transparency, but does not solve the operational problems on the ground.

Humanitarian organizations and the WHO are attempting to strengthen epidemiological surveillance and identify contacts of confirmed cases. However, in areas affected by fighting, access for health workers is severely limited, and the displaced population moves frequently, making contact tracing more difficult.

The weight of memory: the 2018-2020 outbreak

The news of 12 June 2026, disseminated by the Deutschlandfunk program, picked up the figures and testimonies of le Polain, helping to draw international attention to an outbreak that, outside Central Africa, risks going unnoticed despite its severity.

Experts stress that the current flare-up, while not yet comparable in size to that of 2018-2020, presents worrying signs: the rapid succession of new health zones involved, the absence of a targeted vaccine, and the logistical difficulties linked to the conflict context. Every day that passes without effective containment, le Polain warned, increases the risk of further spread.

Congolese authorities and international partners — including WHO, Unicef, and non-governmental organizations in the field — are assessing how to strengthen the response, but the lack of a specific vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus requires a return to classic measures of isolation, contact tracing, and community awareness-raising, in a context where trust in health facilities is being severely tested by the fear of contagion.

The ongoing crisis in the DR Congo fits into a regional picture already marked by other outbreaks of infectious diseases and a prolonged humanitarian crisis. The international community is called upon to support containment efforts, also to prevent the outbreak from spreading beyond national borders, as has happened in the past for other Ebola outbreaks in the Great Lakes region.