Monday, 25 May 2026

WHO Director-General's remarks at the Virtual Ministerial Briefing on the Bundibugyo Ebola Outbreak – 25 May 2026

Organizers: Africa CDC

25 May

Your Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa,

Thank you so much for your leadership, and for announcing the financial contribution, which is important for Africa CDC.

Your Excellency Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf,

Honourable Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar,

Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya,

Dear colleagues and friends,

I thank President Ramaphosa and Chairperson Youssouf for their leadership, and I thank my brother Dr Jean Kaseya for convening this briefing.

As you know, in the early hours of on Sunday the 17^th of May, I declared the Ebola outbreak in DRC a public health emergency of international concern, after consulting the Ministers of Health of both DRC and Uganda, and after the Africa CDC’s notification.

The outbreak is spreading rapidly.

So far, 101 cases have been confirmed in DRC, with 10 confirmed deaths.

But we know the epidemic in DRC is much larger. There are now more than 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths.

This past Friday, WHO upgraded our risk assessment from high to very high at the national level.

We continue to assess the risk as high at the regional level and low at the global level.

Countries bordering DRC are at especially high risk and should take immediate action.

In Uganda, there are five confirmed cases and one death.

I appreciate the leadership of President Museveni in cancelling the Martyrs’ Day commemoration to prevent the further spread of the virus.

As you know, Martyrs’ Day attracts up to 2 million people.

I thank the governments of DRC and Uganda for their leadership of the response, which WHO is supporting, in close partnership with Africa CDC and many others.

On Friday, we convened a meeting of African health ministers on the margins of the World Health Assembly to update them and urge them to take action.

The community based interventions were underlined during the discussion, where there is trust deficit.

Together with the Africa CDC, WHO is establishing a continental Incident Management Support Team.

And we are finalizing a multi-agency Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan, aligned with the national plans of both DRC and Uganda, and with our partners.

In the IMST and the Strategic Plan, we have experience with Africa CDC in previous outbreaks.

WHO is on the ground, supporting national authorities with every pillar of the response, including contact tracing, establishing treatment centres, strengthening laboratory capacity, case management, infection prevention and control, risk communication, community engagement and more.

We have also released US$ 3.9 million from the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies.

Tomorrow I will be travelling to DRC with Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director of the WHE Health Emergencies Programme.

There are several aspects of this outbreak that make it especially challenging.

First, the delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic.

We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us.

Second, as you know, the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu are highly insecure, with intensified fighting in recent months, causing more than 100 000 people to be newly displaced.

There is also significant distrust of outside authorities among the local population.

In the past week there have been two security incidents at health facilities.

Building trust in the affected communities is critical to a successful response, and is one of our highest priorities.

Third, there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics for Bundibugyo virus.

There have only been two previous outbreaks of Bundibugyo, in Uganda in 2007 and DRC in 2012.

Last week, WHO convened the leaders of several partner organizations under the interim Medical Countermeasures Network, to review the pipeline of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

WHO has recommended prioritizing two monoclonal antibodies to advance in clinical trials.

We are also recommending the evaluation of the antiviral obeldesivir in a clinical trial as post-exposure prophylaxis for people who are high-risk contacts.

This clinical trial is now being developed jointly with Africa CDC and the Collaborative Open Research Consortium on filovuruses.

We are also discussing with partners candidate vaccines in the development and manufacturing pipeline.

Excellencies,

We are facing an extremely serious and difficult outbreak. It will get worse before it gets better.

But we know this virus, and we know how to stop it. We have stopped every previous Ebola outbreak, and we will stop this one too.

As President Ramaphosa said, this can only be done with unity.

The question is just how quickly we can do it, and how many more lives will be lost before we do.

WHO is fully committed to working under the leadership of the Governments of DRC and Uganda, side by side with Africa CDC and all other partners.

We will not rest until we bring this outbreak under control.

Thank you once again for this opportunity, and for your leadership.

I thank you.

WHO's work on Ebola disease

Media contact:
mediainquiries@who.int

You are receiving this NO-REPLY email because you are included on a WHO mail list.
If you have been forwarded this update you can click here to subscribe.
Journalists may send feedback to WHO Media Team