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Ebola may have been spreading unchecked in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since January, with local officials now tracing the latest outbreak of the deadly virus back to a patient zero at the beginning of the year.
However, for reasons unclear, this crucial information was kept from international NGOs by medical officials until last week, with local medics now acknowledging they believe the 2026 outbreak originated with a patient treated at a hospital in the eastern DRC village of Rwampara. Local medical staff say patient zero arrived at hospital in late January and passed away in February, with The Telegraph adding that the patient subsequently infected eight healthcare workers before dying.
In the months since, there have been at least 1,077 suspected cases and 223 deaths traced back to the rare Bundibugyo strain that has emerged from the DRC in recent months. Additionally, there have been nine cases reported in neighbouring Uganda.
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MONGBWALU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - MAY 20: A patient prepares to have blood drawn for a test at General Referral Hospital of Mongbwalu during the Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Image: undefined)
Should information from local healthcare workers be verified, the details that have just emerged indicate the deadly virus has been spreading without detection for months. The 2026 outbreak ranks as the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record and was only formally confirmed by the Congolese Ministry of Health on May 15. This would mean the virus has had months to spread through communities without intervention.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) previously believed the index case was a healthcare worker in Bunia in the DRC, who developed symptoms of Ebola on April 25 and later died. A number of international NGOs received the updated health information, including the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Action Aid, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
IRC Senior Technical Emergency Health Advisor Rachel Howard said: "The true scale of this Ebola outbreak is likely far worse than official figures suggest".
MONGBWALU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - MAY 24: Health workers wearing protective equipment carry the body of a suspected Ebola victim during safe burial procedures outside a family home in the community of Mongbwaluon May 24, 2026 (Image: undefined)
"When four out of five contacts are not being traced, it becomes incredibly difficult to contain the outbreak or even understand its true scale. We're especially concerned about the virus spreading to other countries like Burundi or South Sudan," Ms Howard added.
Should the outbreak have actually begun as far back as January, many thousands more individuals may have been exposed to the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which is notoriously challenging to control and currently has no licensed vaccines or treatments available. Just 20 per cent of individuals known to have had close contact with Ebola patients in the DRC since the official outbreak date in April have subsequently been contact traced.
Thousands remain unaccounted for — and the true figure could be far greater if the Bundibugyo ebolavirus has been spreading unchecked since January.
TOPSHOT - Workers from the Uganda Red Cross Society is sprayed with disinfectant during the evacuation of the body of a suspected Ebola victim in Kampala on May 26, 2026. The organisation is poised to assist the Ministry of Health in transporting suspected cases to treatment centres and conducting safe, dignified burials following confirmed positive results. This action comes after the confirmation of three additional Ebola Bundibugyo cases , raising the total to five linked to travelers from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an outbreak has claimed 119 lives among 904 suspected cases. The World Health Organisation has classified this outbreak in both the DRC and Uganda as a public health emergency of international concern. (Photo by Badru KATUMBA / AFP via Getty Images) (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Containment efforts across the region have been further undermined by volatile security conditions, widespread community mistrust and conspiracy theories, compounded by the distress of relatives barred from burying loved ones who have perished from the devastating disease.
Last week, a treatment centre in Rwampara operated by MSF was stormed by a group attempting to retrieve the bodies of relatives who had died from Ebola — remains that would still carry the deadly infection.
To compound the crisis further, nearly one million people have been displaced by conflict in the DRC's Ituri province — the epicentre of the outbreak and one of the most troubled regions in the country, where armed factions, rebels linked to Islamic State, and community militias routinely carry out massacres.
A displaced woman wears a mask as she sits outside her shelter in the Kigonze camp in Bunia, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 28, 2026. An Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak is spreading rapidly in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the poorest countries in the world.More than 1,000 suspected cases including 223 deaths have so far been recorded in the DRC by the World Health Organization (WHO).Nearly one million people have been displaced by conflict in Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak and one of the most troubled areas of the DRC, where armed groups, rebels linked to the Islamic State, and community militias regularly carry out massacres. (Photo by Glody MURHABAZI / AFP via Getty Images) (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Ituri in the DRC last week amid the ongoing outbreak, calling for greater international support to bring the spread of the virus under control. Healthcare workers on the ground are lacking fundamental supplies such as face masks, while the international health agency is facing difficulties, having secured only a fraction of the financial backing required to provide assistance on the ground.
Additional funding is urgently needed to cover the distribution of testing kits, establishment of treatment facilities, and implementation of contact tracing programmes. The British Government did pledge £21 million to the DRC just last week to support containment measures. However, critics have been swift to highlight that those millions represent merely five per cent of the aid dispatched by the UK to tackle the 2014 West African outbreak.
Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaks to the media upon his arrival at N'djili International Airport in Kinshasa, Congo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi) (Image: Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
The UK and other Western nations have significantly slashed their aid budgets to redirect those funds towards defence spending.
The US, for instance, witnessed aid reductions across the board following the Trump administration's arrival in power. Washington withdrew funding from WHO, dissolved the US Agency for International Development (USAID), imposed cutbacks at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and is currently reducing the total health aid it provides to DRC and Uganda, the nations at the epicentre of the latest Ebola outbreak.
All of the above measures have undermined global health systems that are crucial when responding to outbreaks such as the one currently unfolding in the DRC.
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