DR Congo scales up Ebola response as cases top 4,000

Health authorities are expanding their response to a major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the number of cases rose above 4,000, according to Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention officials.

The DRC’s national public health institute had recorded 3,973 cases and 1,801 deaths as of August 4, 2026. Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said on August 6 that the case total had since passed 4,000, making the outbreak the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record.

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain, was first officially reported on May 15, although health authorities suspect transmission may have begun in January. It is centred in conflict-affected Ituri province and has spread to Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Haut-Uele and Tshopo. Uganda recorded 20 cases before bringing its outbreak under control.

Africa CDC said response teams will move from conventional contact tracing to active case searches, with community health workers visiting homes to identify people showing possible Ebola symptoms. Officials said current tracing is finding about 10 contacts per patient, compared with roughly 40 that would normally be expected.

Signs of undetected community transmission remain a central concern. More than two-thirds of deaths are occurring outside treatment centres, while 90 percent of patients admitted to a Médecins Sans Frontières facility in Bunia were not on official contact lists.

Officials are also studying whether the virus has changed, stressing that mutation has not been established. Kaseya said Africa CDC and the World Health Organization plan research into the outbreak’s unusually severe course.

The expanded response will include greater involvement of villages and camps for displaced people, wider use of digital tools and compassionate use of the antiviral remdesivir. Authorities are also assessing whether Ervebo, a vaccine licensed for another Ebola strain, could offer protection against Bundibugyo.

The outbreak is straining routine health services. UNICEF has warned that fear and disruption are keeping families away from clinics; in Mongbwalu, at the centre of the outbreak, uptake of the first measles vaccine dose among children has fallen by 69 percent.

Authorities are separately investigating a suspected Ebola death aboard a boat travelling toward Kinshasa and said other passengers would be quarantined and tested.