The warnings from aid groups and healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been stark, their calls for coordinated international action impassioned.

Rapid Spread of Ebola Sparks Alarming Concerns

As the country reels from the return of the Ebola virus, there is growing concern that its fragile healthcare system will struggle to cope with an outbreak that experts say goes well beyond the number of confirmed cases.

“The speed at which this Ebola outbreak is spreading is deeply worrying,” said Rose Tchwenko, the DRC country director at the NGO Mercy Corps. “The risk of wider spread is real, and more regional and global support is urgently needed.”

Hama Amado, a field coordinator in the city of Bunia for the Alima aid group, said the virus was gaining momentum and spreading in many areas. “Everyone must mobilise,” he told Associated Press on Thursday. “We are still far from saying that the situation is under control.”

Outbreak Statistics and Spread

It has been a week since the DRC reported its 17th outbreak of Ebola, a viral disease with a mortality rate of between 25% and 90% that is spread through body fluids or contaminated materials and causes organ damage, blood vessel impairment and sometimes severe internal and external bleeding.

Nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths have been recorded since the first known victim died in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in north-western DRC, on 24 April. Mourners touched him during a funeral in the nearby town of Mongbwalu, contributing to the spread of the virus.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have quickly become overwhelmed. Trish Newport, an emergency programme manager at Médecins Sans Frontières, said a team had identified suspected cases over the weekend at Bunia’s Salama hospital but found no available isolation ward in the area. “Every health facility they called said: ‘We’re full of suspect cases. We don’t have any space,’” she said on social media. “This gives you a vision of how crazy it is right now.”

Challenges in the Aid Response

Several factors are impeding the aid response, including the strain of the virus, for which there is no approved treatment or vaccine; the remote and conflict-scarred location of the outbreak; and local funeral customs which are at odds with strict disease-control practice. All this is set against the backdrop of big shortfalls in aid budgets, driven largely by the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid.

According to a study by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this year, more than half of health facilities surveyed in North and South Kivu provinces – where cases have also been reported – were damaged or destroyed, and nearly half had reported significant staff departures since January 2025 owing to conflict and insecurity.

Two incidents this week laid bare some of the aggravating factors. On Tuesday, at least 17 people were killed in an attack by the Allied Democratic Forces, a militant group operating in eastern DRC and parts of Uganda, on several villages near the town of Mambasa, in Ituri. “We are facing a double war: one of weapons and another of the disease outbreak,” said Zawadi Jeanne, a woman from the town who lost her brother and uncle in an ADF attack last month.

On Thursday, a crowd set fire to a treatment centre in Rwampara, near Bunia, after authorities refused to give them the body of a victim they wanted to bury themselves.