Congo’s Ebola outbreak passes 11,000 cases and 5,000 deaths as armed attacks slow the response, UN says
About 400 to 500 new cases are still found every week, the World Health Organization says, mostly in remote villages.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has passed 11,000 confirmed cases and 5,000 deaths, UN officials said Friday, and attacks by armed groups are holding back the effort to stop it. It is the country’s largest Ebola outbreak, declared in May and caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus.
About 400 to 500 new cases are still found each week, mostly in rural, hard-to-reach areas, said Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program. Spread has dropped sharply in earlier hot spots in Ituri province, including the city of Bunia.
Julien Harneis, the UN’s senior Ebola response coordinator, said fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group, have recently killed more people than Ebola has. Tracing contacts where they operate is “a very hazardous idea,” he said. The WHO said an attack in North Kivu province killed 66 civilians, including three health workers.
The UN World Food Programme said nearly 29 million people in Congo do not have enough to eat, most of them in the same eastern provinces. In neighboring Kenya, a 42-day countdown to declaring its outbreak over began Thursday.
Source: UN News, Nov. 13, 2026.