Overview
- WHO Director‑General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Kinshasa on Friday to oversee the response and urged a ceasefire so health teams can work in conflict‑hit areas.
- Health agencies report roughly a thousand suspected cases and several hundred suspected deaths across eastern DRC and confirmed infections in neighbouring Uganda, with limited testing likely understating the true scale.
- The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus for which there is no licensed vaccine or strain‑specific therapy, so WHO is fast‑tracking clinical trials and relying on testing, isolation and supportive care.
- Contact tracing has largely failed in insecure and displaced communities, with teams able to follow only about a third of identified contacts, which responders say prevents breaking transmission chains.
- A Kenyan High Court on Friday temporarily blocked a U.S. plan for a 50‑bed biocontainment facility at Laikipia Air Base after petitions from rights groups and medical unions, and the case will be heard on June 2.