WHO declares Ebola an international health emergency

Ebola epidemic: WHO declares an international health emergency Keystone-SDA

On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) triggered its second-highest international alert level in response to the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is caused by a variant that is highly lethal and has no vaccine.

According to a statement published by the Geneva-based WHO on the social network X, its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has concluded that the virus “constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), but does not meet the criteria for a pandemic emergency”. Since 2024, the PHEIC has been the WHO’s second highest alert level, after “pandemic emergency”.

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Ebola, which causes an extremely contagious haemorrhagic fever, remains formidable despite recent vaccines and treatments, which are effective only against the Zaire strain that has caused the biggest epidemics on record.

Bundibugyo variant

The province of Ituri, in the north-east of the DRC, has been hit by the Bundibugyo variant of Ebola, against which there is no vaccine. As of May 16, the WHO had confirmed eight cases in laboratories and counted 246 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths in the province, as well as another confirmed case in Kinshasa and a death in Kampala, Uganda, among travellers who had recently returned from Ituri.

The African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC, has recorded 88 deaths probably due to the virus out of 336 suspected cases, according to the latest figures published on Saturday. As the outbreak is located in an area that is difficult to access, few samples have been tested in laboratories, and most of the reports are based on suspected cases.

Ituri, a gold mining region bordering Uganda and South Sudan, is experiencing intense population movements linked to mining activity. Access to certain areas, which are plagued by armed violence, is difficult for security reasons.

“We’ve been seeing people dying for the past two weeks”, said Isaac Nyakulinda, a civil society representative from the town of Rwampara (Ituri), contacted by AFP by telephone. “There is no place to isolate the sick. They die at home and their bodies are handled by family members”, he continued, fearing the worst.

15,000 deaths in 50 years

The virus has claimed more than 15,000 lives in Africa over the last 50 years. During previous outbreaks, the mortality rate fluctuated between 25% and 90%, according to the WHO.

“The Bundibugyo strain has no vaccine and no specific treatment”, stressed the Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba on Saturday, adding that “with this strain, the lethality rate is very high. It can be as high as 50%”.

The Bundibugyo variant has caused only two epidemics in the world to date, in Uganda in 2007 (42 deaths out of 131 confirmed cases) and in the DRC in 2012 (13 deaths out of 38 confirmed cases).

“We don’t have a vaccine, which means that we are essentially relying on public health measures”, such as observing barrier measures and restricting movement, said Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, on Saturday.

Fluid transmission

According to the health authorities, the first suspected case is a nurse who presented with symptoms of Ebola infection at a medical facility in Bunia, the capital of Ituri, on April 24.

The DRC experienced an Ebola epidemic between August and December 2025, with at least 34 deaths. The most deadly epidemic in the DRC claimed almost 2,300 lives for 3,500 patients between 2018 and 2020.

In total, this epidemic is the 17th in the DRC since the disease was identified in 1976 in Zaire, the country’s former name. Other countries on the continent have been affected by the virus in recent years, including Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The virus is transmitted to humans via bodily fluids or exposure to the blood of an infected person, whether alive or dead. Infected people do not become contagious until symptoms appear, with an incubation period of up to 21 days.

Adapted from French by AI/ac

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