The Democratic Republic of Congo is battling the deadliest Ebola outbreak in its history, with more than 2,500 deaths recorded among over 5,000 confirmed cases — and the crisis is accelerating. Julien Harneis, the United Nations' senior Ebola coordinator, warned on Friday that the epidemic is "growing exponentially," with half of all deaths occurring in just the past 20 days. Speaking from Bunia, the northeastern city at the epicentre of the outbreak, Harneis described the virus as "spreading widely" across an area larger than France, adding that it is "growing faster and wider than the Ebola response."

Declared officially on 15 May as the country's 17th Ebola outbreak since 1976, the epidemic is caused by the Bundibugyo strain — one of the rarest forms of the virus, with only two prior known outbreaks globally. It has taken hold primarily in the north and east of the country, where state authority is limited, health infrastructure is severely underfunded, and dozens of armed groups have operated for decades. Ituri province in the northeast has emerged as the hardest-hit region. Médecins Sans Frontières medical coordinator Frank Ross Katambula, based in Bunia, describes clinics as overflowing, with more patients than beds in some locations. A critical shortage of contact tracers, treatment staff, and medical supplies is compounding the crisis, while funding — already stretched by multiple simultaneous global emergencies — falls well short of what the response requires.

Deep community mistrust is further hampering containment efforts. Misinformation is widespread, including rumours that Ebola does not exist or that aid workers introduced the virus to the region to secure donor funding. Many residents are seeking treatment from traditional healers or arriving at hospitals only in the advanced stages of illness, by which point the risk of death is high and onward transmission has often already occurred. Local journalist Vérité Johnson is attempting to counter this with a daily radio programme from Bunia, bringing in medical experts and broadcasting Ebola-awareness messages embedded in music by Congolese artists.

On the medical front, more than 16,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine — developed by pharmaceutical company Merck and produced in Germany — arrived in Kinshasa on Friday, with a total of 70,000 doses pledged by the World Health Organisation. There is, however, a significant complication: Ervebo is approved against the Zaire strain of Ebola, not the Bundibugyo strain currently circulating. Early animal trial data suggest it may offer some cross-protection, and WHO experts have recommended a full human clinical trial to assess this. Separately, two vaccines specifically targeting Bundibugyo are in clinical development — one by US company Moderna using mRNA technology, and one by the University of Oxford — while a third, described by WHO as "the most promising," is being developed by Singapore-based Hilleman Laboratories.

The outbreak's spread is further complicated by the ongoing armed conflict in eastern Congo. The M23 rebel group, which controls parts of North Kivu province including the cities of Goma and Bukavu seized in early 2025, this week announced a one-month suspension of shared taxis and passenger boats between rebel-held and government-held areas after two travellers tested positive for Ebola in M23-controlled territory. The measures underscore the extraordinary difficulty of mounting a coordinated public health response across a conflict zone. Harneis was direct about the stakes: without a significant scaling-up of resources, he warned, the epidemic will grow deadlier, spread further, and risk crossing into neighbouring countries such as South Sudan and the Central African Republic.