WHO chief says suspected Ebola deaths at 220, says epidemic 'outpacing us'
A Congolese woman reacts outside the house of a man who died of Ebola as she waits for medical workers to retrieve his body, as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain a new Ebola outbreak involving the Bundibugyo strain, in Quartier Shuni 1, a residential sector in Mongbwalu, Djugu Territory of Ituri province, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 24, 2026. REUTERS
World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday that there had been 220 suspected deaths in the current Ebola outbreak and that delays in detecting cases meant responders were now “playing catch-up”.
“We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment the epidemic is outpacing us,” Tedros said, adding that countries bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — the epicentre of the outbreak — should take immediate action.
Earlier on Monday, Uganda reported two more Ebola cases, taking its total number of confirmed cases to seven.
The World Health Organisation has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola a public health emergency of international concern.
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Tedros said he would travel to the Congo on Tuesday and that addressing the fast-moving outbreak was complicated by the fact that the Congo’s Ituri and North Kivu provinces were highly insecure. There were no approved vaccines for the Bundibugyo virus.
More than 900 suspected Ebola cases have been identified in the conflict-hit DRC, the WHO chief has said.
"As surveillance efforts have been scaled up in the DRC Ebola response, more than 900 suspected cases have been identified so far, including 101 confirmed cases," he said in a Sunday social media post that gave no update on the death toll.
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As surveillance efforts have been scaled up in the #DRC #Ebola response, more than 900 suspected cases have been identified so far, including 101 confirmed cases.
In Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak, nearly 5 million people live amid ongoing conflict. Today, 1 in 4… pic.twitter.com/hgIydPGZxDEbola patients flee in attacks on Congo health facilities
Doctors operating on the front lines of the fight against Ebola in Congo, already grappling with shortages of basic supplies, are now also having to deal with attacks on their facilities and fleeing patients as the virus spreads rapidly.
At least three such incidents have occurred in the northeastern province of Ituri, where the first Ebola cases were reported, including two at the weekend, targeting the same hospital that permitted more than two dozen patients to run away.
The attacks recall the widespread violence targeting health facilities during a 2018-2020 outbreak in eastern DRC that killed more than 25 health workers.
Some were perpetrated by civilians who were angry about not being able to bury their loved ones or were convinced that the outbreak was a hoax. The influx of money and manpower into an area that had felt neglected during decades of conflict and humanitarian crisis has spurred local suspicions about the real motives for the sudden spike of interest.
A similar dynamic seems to be playing out now, said Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, which came under attack first on Saturday and again on Sunday.
"There is denial of the disease within the population, with some members wanting to claim the bodies of suspected and/or confirmed cases," he said.
Medical Director of Mungwalu General Hospital, Richard Lokudu, speaks to Reuters at the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital as aid agencies intensify efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in Mongbwalu, Djugu Territory of Ituri province, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 23, 2026. REUTERS
Patient died while trying to flee
At the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, located in Mongbwalu town, where many cases have been reported, 18 Ebola patients fled on Saturday after "unidentified individuals" burned tents, erected by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, where patients were being isolated, Lokodu said.
Four lab results from those patients have come back, three negative results and one positive result, he said.
"So we have one confirmed case of Ebola that continues to circulate in the community and evade the response," Lokodu said.
On Sunday, the hospital came under four waves of attacks by young people mobilised by relatives of a Christian religious leader who died of Ebola, he said.
Seven other patients escaped and Congolese police and soldiers had to mobilise to restore order, he said.
A suspected Ebola patient who was in critical condition with haemorrhaging died in the second attack while trying to flee from his bed, Lokodu added.
The perpetrators of the attacks wanted the dead Ebola victims' bodies released for burial, Lokodu said.
The bodies of Ebola victims are highly infectious after death, and unsafe burials, in which family members handle the body without proper protective equipment, are a leading driver of transmission
Ebola is a deadly viral disease that spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. It can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.
The country declared an outbreak on May 15 caused by the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccine or treatments.
In a previous update released on Saturday, the DRC health ministry said 204 deaths had been recorded in three provinces of the vast central African country, from 867 suspected cases.
Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people across Africa in the past half-century.