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WHO's dire warning: Ebola cases have spread to regions far from the origin of the outbreak

2026-05-22 17:59:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

WHO's dire warning: Ebola cases have spread to regions far from the origin

Global health authorities have warned that the number of deadly Ebola virus infections reported in the latest outbreak of the disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) represents only a small fraction of the current cases, adding that cases have spread to regions far from the origin of the outbreak.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Friday that there are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths from the outbreak. Ghebreyesus added that the DRC outbreak is spreading rapidly and now poses a very high risk at the national level.

The global impact of the Ebola outbreak

On May 15, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this latest outbreak, the 17th overall in the DR Congo, a public health emergency of international concern.

On Thursday, Uganda suspended public passenger transport to Congo due to the Ebola outbreak. The health ministry said the suspension would last four weeks but would not apply to the transport of food or goods.

Jane Halton, chair of the board of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global vaccine initiative based in Norway, described the outbreak as an iceberg: "We have seen the tip of the iceberg. The tip, as we approach it, is quite large."

"We are now facing hundreds of cases and hundreds of deaths," Halton told a group of UN-accredited correspondents in Geneva, Switzerland, but the truth is that the real numbers are much higher than that.

Asked if CEPI had identified potentially safe vaccines that could be effective against the Bundibugyo strain of the virus and had distributed them on a large scale within the next 100 days, she said, "Maybe," adding, "It's a big step forward."

Unlike the Zaire strain of Ebola, there are no known vaccines to combat the less deadly Bundibugyo strain. Although work on a vaccine had begun before the outbreak, Halton said vaccine makers are in a very difficult position. Meanwhile, India and the African Union have postponed a planned summit due to the health emergency./CNA