DRC Ebola Outbreak Now Fastest-Growing in History
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- DRC's health ministry declared the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province on 15 May, though sequencing later showed it began in February; it has since spread to five other provinces with 2,325 deaths and 4,945 confirmed cases as of Sunday.
- The Bundibugyo virus strain driving this outbreak has only appeared in two previous outbreaks (2007 and 2012), and no vaccine currently exists for it — though two candidate vaccines are now being tested on people for the first time alongside clinical trials of two possible treatments that began last month.
- The outbreak is the fastest-growing in known Ebola history, with over 2,000 deaths in less than three months compared to nearly five months for the 2014-16 West Africa crisis to reach 1,000 deaths, and is on track to surpass that outbreak's toll of 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths.
- Health workers at an Ituri treatment centre went on strike recently over three months of unpaid wages, temporarily closing the facility — one of several response-stalling factors alongside attacks on healthcare facilities sparked by misinformation about safe burials.
- Humanitarian funding for DRC declined sharply in 2025 after the Trump administration froze foreign aid to State Department-funded programmes, weakening local health systems and surveillance networks already strained by nearly a million people displaced by conflict in the mineral-rich province.
- The outbreak went undetected for roughly two months: the earliest-known victim, a 59-year-old man, developed symptoms on 24 April, but authorities weren't alerted until 5 May via social media — by which point 50 people had already died, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
- UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Friday that "Ebola is winning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," while WHO emergency response head Abdirahman Mahamud projected the outbreak won't peak for six months under a moderate scenario and could run up to 12.
Why it matters: DRC's Ebola response is being simultaneously starved on three fronts — Trump administration foreign aid freezes, health workers striking over unpaid wages, and armed conflict in mineral-rich Ituri — as WHO projects the outbreak won't peak for another 6-12 months. With no vaccine available for the Bundibugyo strain driving it, this is on track to become the largest Ebola outbreak in recorded history.
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