The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded is pushing millions more people toward hunger in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast Central African country already home to one of the world's most severe humanitarian emergencies. Carl Skau, acting executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), described the situation during a visit to Ituri province — the epicenter of the outbreak — as a "crisis on top of a crisis," warning that it demands far greater international attention and funding.

Eastern Congo has long been devastated by armed conflict fought partly over the region's rich mineral deposits, driving nearly 10 million people into crisis or emergency levels of hunger. Ituri province alone has 1.9 million people in need of food assistance. The Ebola outbreak, declared on May 15, has compounded this catastrophe: across the 48 health zones now affected, more than 2.7 million people face acute food insecurity, including 628,000 in emergency conditions. The outbreak has recorded 3,360 confirmed cases and 1,487 deaths — reaching the grim milestone of 1,000 deaths in just over two months, a pace far exceeding the 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic, previously considered the worst in history, which took roughly eight months to reach the same toll. In the last 24 hours reported, 50 people died.

Ebola containment measures — including border closures, movement restrictions and bans on large gatherings — have disrupted markets and supply routes, driving up food and fuel prices. In Mongbwalu, a mining town some 69 kilometres from Bunia, Ituri's provincial capital, residents describe being caught between rebel violence that cuts them off from their farmland and Ebola restrictions that compound their inability to feed their families. "Sometimes, because of the insecurity, we can't even go to our fields, and our children are suffering as a result," said Kahambu Deborah, a 40-year-old mother of six. Doctors at local hospitals report rising malnutrition cases even within Ebola treatment centres. The WFP has responded by delivering more than 160,000 hot meals to patients, contacts and frontline workers across 17 treatment and isolation centres, partly to reduce the need for people to move around in search of food and thus risk spreading the virus.

The outbreak is made harder to fight because the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments, unlike variants behind previous Congo outbreaks. A vaccine trial is underway, but an approved vaccine is still months away. Meanwhile, the broader humanitarian appeal for Congo — totalling $2.1 billion — is only 45% funded, and funding cuts have forced the WFP to reduce the number of Congolese it assists from 3 million last year to 1 million this year. The separate Ebola response appeal is being revised upward as the outbreak has spread from two to four provinces.

The health emergency does not stop at Ebola. The WHO reports a sharp rise in cholera cases across the country in 2026, with 106,401 cases and 3,124 deaths recorded in just the first six months of the year — already far exceeding the roughly 65,000 cases and 1,880 deaths registered throughout all of 2025. Eastern provinces North and South Kivu account for 52% of cholera cases, but new outbreaks are emerging in western areas, including near Zongo, a town on the Ubangi river facing the Central African capital Bangui, where 270 suspected cases were reported in a single week. Officials fear the disease is spreading along river routes used by displaced populations. Skau's central appeal remains urgent: "The World Food Programme needs resources and donors to step up so that we can do more to alleviate the pressures on the people here in Ituri."