Overview
- Health authorities report roughly 896 confirmed cases and about 232 deaths as the Bundibugyo outbreak has spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu in eastern DRC and crossed into Uganda.
- The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency on May 17 and rapid weekly growth — about a 38% jump in one week — has outpaced response capacity in the month since.
- Contact tracing is critically inadequate: only about 4,000 contacts have been followed, under 15% of the 17,000–35,000 contacts estimated for known cases, leaving many exposed people unmonitored.
- Response teams face severe shortages of personnel, ambulances, PPE, isolation beds and lab reagents, while violence, displacement and community mistrust have blocked access to communities and safe burials.
- There is no approved vaccine or targeted treatment for Bundibugyo; clinical trials and experimental therapies are being planned but will take months to reach the field, and delayed funding disbursement is slowing urgent deployments.