An Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo has surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases with 254 deaths, as authorities struggle with contact tracing and ongoing rebel violence that has left response efforts unable to contain the spread of the rare Bundibugyo virus, officials said Sunday.
Confirmed cases in the outbreak have reached 1,003, including 254 deaths, Congo's Ministry of Health said Sunday. A total of 100 people have recovered in the outbreak concentrated in Ituri province since it was declared on May 15. At least 365 patients are in hospitals or in isolation, the ministry said.
No Vaccine, No Patient Zero
The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no vaccines or treatment. Officials said there could be far more cases they still do not know about and that the peak of the outbreak is still ahead. Contact tracing remains a key issue for local authorities, who have only achieved a 55% coverage rate, the ministry said.
Officials also have yet to identify the patient zero and trace more than 35,000 people who have come in contact with infected individuals as of last week, authorities said. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya said, "If you want to control an outbreak, especially Ebola outbreak, you must know the index case. We don't have confidence on when this outbreak started."
Violence Compounds Crisis
Eastern Congo is also battling ongoing violence from rebels. In Ituri, attacks by the Islamic State group-backed Allied Democratic Force have cut off access to many villages and forced people to flee their homes, including those sheltering in overcrowded camps and others constantly on the move. More than a month into the outbreak, officials believe the disease continues to outpace response efforts and no one knows its true scale.
At the Kigonze displacement camp in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, camp officials said Friday that 10 people had died last week in unusual circumstances, raising the fear of a possible outbreak in the camp of over 20,000 displaced people. There had been no Ebola case confirmed at the site, camp officials said, but added that the death rate was unprecedented and called for investigation.
Displaced Populations at Risk
The U.N. refugee agency said at least 2 million people forcibly displaced from their homes, including over 320,000 refugees, live in areas at risk of Ebola in Congo. In a statement on Friday, the agency said it was "deeply concerned by the accelerating spread" of the virus and "the growing risks it poses to displaced communities across the region."
Charité Banza, a civil society leader in Ituri, said, "If a disease or epidemic were to spread among the thousands of people living at this (Kigonze) site, it would be a real catastrophe given our already very precarious living conditions."
Why This Matters:
The inability to establish basic security and governance in eastern Congo has created conditions where a deadly outbreak can spiral beyond control. Without the rule of law to protect medical workers and enable contact tracing, public health interventions cannot function effectively. The Islamic State-backed violence has fractured territorial control, preventing authorities from reaching affected villages and identifying patient zero—a fundamental requirement for containing any epidemic. With more than 35,000 contacts untraced and only 55% coverage achieved, the outbreak's true scale remains unknown. The concentration of 2 million displaced people in at-risk areas, many in overcrowded camps with precarious conditions, demonstrates how state failure and insecurity compound public health crises, potentially threatening regional stability.