The head of the World Health Organisation has arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict-stricken east, where the continent’s latest Ebola outbreak is colliding with ongoing warfare in a combination that health officials warn could become catastrophic.
The WHO director-general touched down in Ituri province, the epicentre of the seventeenth Ebola outbreak in Congo’s history, as confirmed cases climbed to 121 with 17 laboratory-confirmed deaths and 246 additional suspected fatalities. The Bundibugyo strain — a variant previously identified but now spreading under entirely different conditions — has been confirmed in laboratory tests, but researchers say the absence of a proven vaccine for this particular variant complicates the response significantly.
Eastern Congo has been embroiled in conflict for years. Armed groups control large swaths of territory across North Kivu and Ituri, and the presence of JNIM militias — linked to broader Sahelian jihadist networks — has meant that healthcare workers cannot access significant portions of the outbreak zone. In several areas, the very communities most at risk are also those cut off from any form of medical support.
“We are not just dealing with a disease,” the WHO chief said during his visit. “We are dealing with communities that have been displaced, traumatized, and left without basic health infrastructure. Ebola in these conditions is a different kind of emergency entirely.”
The situation in Bunia, Ituri’s largest city, has become particularly acute. Local isolation centres are operating beyond capacity, and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has elevated the outbreak to a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security — only the third time such a designation has been used. Uganda has already closed its border with Congo in a bid to prevent cross-border transmission, and ten other nations have been classified as high-risk.
For the families caught in the crossfire between conflict and epidemic, the options are few. Many have fled their homes in the interior, heading toward towns where medical help is theoretically available — but in practice, overwhelmed and under-resourced. Contact tracing, the cornerstone of any Ebola response, has become nearly impossible in areas where movement is restricted by both active fighting and local quarantines imposed by community leaders acting without government coordination.
International health authorities are calling for emergency funding and for guarantees of safe access to conflict zones. Without those guarantees, the outbreak could continue spreading unchecked in the areas where it is hardest to contain.
