Deaths and cases surge in eastern DR Congo as rare Ebola strain spreads
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenAgence France-PressePublished: 5:48pm, 19 May 2026Updated: 5:58pm, 19 May 2026The World Health Organization chief voiced concern on Tuesday about the “scale and speed” of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has killed an estimated 131 people.
The WHO has declared the surge of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever an international health emergency and was expected to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis on Tuesday.
No vaccine or therapeutic treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola responsible for the latest outbreak of the disease, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.
With the new outbreak largely concentrated in difficult-to-access areas, few samples have been laboratory-tested and figures are based mostly on suspected cases.
“We have recorded roughly 131 deaths in total and we have around 513 suspected cases,” Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said on national television early Tuesday.
“The deaths we are reporting are all the deaths we have identified in the community, without necessarily saying that they are all linked to Ebola,” he added.
