Congo’s Ebola Outbreak on Track to Be Deadliest Ever, Says WHO Chief

The West African Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016 caused 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths across ​Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

A healthcare worker takes samples from a patient suffering from Ebola virus disease at the Ebola Treatment Center of the Center Médical Évangélique (CME), in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP via Getty Images

The Ebola outbreak in Congo is on track to become the deadliest in history, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, surpassing the West African outbreak from a decade ago that caused more than 11,000 fatalities.

“It’s already the second-biggest Ebola epidemic on record, and it’s moving faster than any previous Ebola outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference on Aug. 12.

“At its current pace, it’s on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016.”

That outbreak caused 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths across ​Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Tedros said that officially, there are 4,449 confirmed cases, and there have been 2,061 deaths across five provinces and 53 health zones.

“The outbreak had a big head start, still way ahead of us, and we’re playing catch-up,” he said.

About 90 percent of all cases and 80 percent of deaths are in the province of Ituri, the WHO official said.

The remarks came after Congo’s National Institute of Public Health confirmed earlier this week that the number of deaths in the country as a result of the outbreak had surpassed 2,000.

The current outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus. It was first detected in mid-May, and several international and national groups have traveled to the infected areas to try to contain its spread. There are no approved therapeutics or vaccines, but Tedros said that efforts to address this are underway.

He said that two vaccines developed for the Bundibugyo virus are now being tested in people. The health body is also planning to test whether an existing Ebola vaccine can protect people against the virus, following studies in animals that showed promising results.

Outbreak May Last 12 Months

Abdi Rahman Mahamud, director of WHO’s Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations, said that the organization expects the outbreak to peak in six months but that this was considered the “moderate scenario.”

“There is a worst-case scenario where this outbreak may last nine months to 12 months,” said Mahamud, who was also at the press conference.

“We are doing everything possible to shorten that.”

He said that this is a “highly dynamic outbreak,” which needs the community to be on the health authorities’ side to contain it.

Delays in detection, a lack of treatment for this virus, and military conflict have allowed the disease to outrun containment efforts.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people can contract Ebola if mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, or mouth, or broken skin, come in contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated objects.

Ebola does not spread in the same way as respiratory viruses such as influenza; a person cannot become infected by being near someone with the disease.