DRC Ebola Emergency

Your donation can help UNHCR educate displaced communities about the risk of Ebola and promote good hygiene and sanitation practices, helping people protect themselves. Your gift can also help UNHCR improve sanitation facilities in settlements and deliver vital hygiene supplies like soap to families in need.

UNHCR teams are working rapidly to help contain the virus by educating displaced communities in DRC about Ebola, installing or upgrading sanitation facilities in settlements, and distributing hygiene supplies such as soap and masks. UNHCR is also coordinating with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), ministries of health and other partners on the emergency response to the outbreak.

After being forced to flee, many refugees and displaced people in the DRC and Uganda are at high risk because they are living in crowded conditions such as temporary settlements, with limited access to hygiene or sanitation facilities. This dramatically increases the risk of transmission. The affected provinces in eastern DRC have also endured armed conflict, which has weakened the healthcare system.

No. Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks, this has been caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus. There is no approved vaccine or treatment. WHO has convened its expert and advisory groups to assess potential vaccines and treatments for the Bundibugyo strain.

Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and primates.

It is an infectious viral haemorrhagic fever, transmitted to humans through direct contact with bodily fluids of infected animals. Human-to-human transmission occurs through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals.

Symptoms can be varied and typically set in between two and 21 days after infection. Initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.

There is a fast-spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with more than 900 suspected cases and 200 deaths as of 28 May.

The outbreak is affecting Ituri and North Kivu provinces, which host two million displaced people. Most are Congolese who have been internally displaced by conflict and violence. Others are refugees from countries including South Sudan and Burundi.

Uganda also has a number of confirmed cases of the virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

Since the declaration of the outbreak on 15 May 2026, authorities have taken a number of measures including laboratory testing, disease surveillance, infection prevention and control, community engagement and resource mobilisation.

Unfortunately, control of the outbreak is complicated by the dire humanitarian emergency inside the DRC, particularly in the affected areas in the country’s east. For example, in Ituri province 1.2 million people are in need of aid.

Ebola has been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

In the DRC, transmission is concentrated in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

Yes. An Ebola outbreak was confirmed in the DRC and Uganda in May 2026. This is the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no approved vaccine.

Yes. West Africa was affected by an Ebola disease outbreak in 2014 – 2016. It was the largest outbreak since the virus was first discovered. This outbreak affected Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, as well as a number of other countries. This outbreak was caused by the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus.

Yes. The current outbreak is the seventeenth time the DRC has faced Ebola since the virus was first discovered in 1976. The largest outbreak was from 2018 – 2020, when the virus spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. As with the current outbreak, it unfolded in areas already affected by conflict and displacement.

There are more than 900 suspected cases of Ebola and over 200 deaths as of 28 May 2026.