WHO Chief Heads To DRC As Ebola Outbreak Outpaces Response

World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is travelling to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province continues to spread, straining response efforts on the ground.

“On my way to the DRC. Ebola is back. Ituri province is bearing the brunt. I will be on the ground with our WHO teams, partners, and the extraordinary health workers who have never stopped fighting, all working under the leadership of the Government of the DRC,” Tedros said in a post on X.

He added that the country had defeated Ebola sixteen times before, and that the seventeenth outbreak would be no different.

Tedros had earlier warned that eastern DRC was facing “a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict,” saying the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province was outpacing the response and that stopping transmission depended entirely on humanitarian access.

“Ongoing clashes are driving mass displacement, pushing exposed contacts into overcrowded camps and severing critical containment corridors. Frontline workers are risking everything, while attacks on health facilities make tracking cases and their contacts nearly impossible,” the WHO chief said.

Tedros noted that insecurity, attacks on health facilities and population movements were making it “nearly impossible” to trace contacts and isolate cases, adding that hunger was compounding the crisis with nearly 10m people across Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tanganyika facing acute hunger between January and June 2026.

“Hunger and disease are old companions,” he said. “People weakened by hunger are far more vulnerable to infections.”

DRC has reported nearly 1,000 suspected Ebola cases and more than 220 suspected deaths, though only one death has been laboratory confirmed, with the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola driving the outbreak having no approved vaccine or treatment.

Uganda has recorded seven confirmed cases linked to cross-border movement from Ituri, and WHO has assessed the regional risk as very high while classifying the global risk as low.