Tedros reaches Congo as Ebola outbreak spreads at record pace

Kinshasa,UPDATED: Aug 5, 2026 17:26 IST

World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Congo on Wednesday as aid workers warned that the world’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak is continuing to spread rapidly. Some frontline health workers in the affected areas have also gone on strike over delayed pay and are demanding better wages.

The outbreak had 3,874 confirmed cases, including 1,751 deaths, as of Monday, according to data published overnight by Congo’s Ministry of Health. Nearly three months after it was declared in mid-May, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said the outbreak was still "spreading at an alarming and unprecedented rate".

Tedros was scheduled to meet partners and President Felix Tshisekedi in the capital, Kinshasa, the WHO country office told The Associated Press. It was his second visit since the outbreak was declared on May 15. The outbreak has overtaken all previous Ebola outbreaks in terms of speed of transmission and is now the second-largest on record, behind the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, which recorded more than 28,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths.

In Ituri, the centre of the outbreak, families said many frontline workers have stopped work, making access to healthcare even more difficult in an area already affected by rebel conflict in eastern Congo near the borders of South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda. While some workers said they had started receiving payment in the past week for work done since the outbreak began, they are also seeking better wages.

Anicet Baluku, a resident of Bunia, Ituri’s capital, blamed the deaths of his two brothers from Ebola on the strike. "We urge the authorities to quickly find a solution to prevent other families from experiencing the same tragedy," he told the AP.

The Bundibugyo virus causing this outbreak has no approved treatment or vaccine, and local officials believe it began in a remote area well before it was declared on May 15. Doctors Without Borders said, "The response is expanding but is still not reaching communities quickly enough to break transmission chains." Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease and Control, said on Tuesday during a visit to Bunia that "contact tracing isn’t working", with at least 60 to 70 per cent of new cases coming from outside the group of people being monitored after exposure to patients.

Officials said late detection of cases has been a major reason for the 45 per cent fatality rate. The 77 new cases reported in the previous 24 hours included 44 deaths, according to the health ministry. At least 717 patients are in isolation while 749 have recovered. Overall, the outbreak continues to grow rapidly as health authorities deal with both the spread of the virus and disruption to the response on the ground.

With PTI Inputs

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