The World Health Organisation (WHO) has upgraded the public health risk posed by the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo from high to very high.
This raises fresh alarm over the pace at which the disease is spreading.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement at a press conference on Friday, 22nd May, 2026, confirming that the risk level has been revised upward at the national level, while remaining high regionally and low globally.
“The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spreading rapidly,” Tedros said, adding that nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths had been recorded in the country.
Of those, 82 cases have been laboratory confirmed alongside seven confirmed deaths, though Tedros was clear that the true scale of the epidemic is considerably larger than the confirmed figures suggest.
The situation has also crossed into neighbouring Uganda, where two cases have been confirmed in individuals who had travelled from the DRC.
One of those cases proved fatal, though Tedros described the situation in Uganda as currently stable.
Adding to the concern, the WHO chief warned that ongoing violence and insecurity on the ground in DRC are significantly hampering efforts to contain and respond to the outbreak.
This has become a major obstacle for health workers trying to reach affected communities in one of the world’s most volatile conflict zones.
Uganda’s Ministry of Health has also confirmed three new cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the country, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to five.
