Topline<\/p>\n
More than 130 people have died in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country\u2019s health minister announced Tuesday, as the head of the World Health Organization said he was \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d about the rapidly growing outbreak.<\/p>\n
A border health officer at the Busunga crossing between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo checks a traveler’s temperature using a contactless infrared thermometer.<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty ImagesTimeline<\/p>\n
TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2026 DRC health officials announce<\/a> that 131 deaths and 513 suspected cases are linked to the outbreak in the country, and a spokesperson tells BBC News<\/a> that cases are now being reported over a larger area.<\/p>\n Speaking at the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says<\/a> he is \u201cdeeply concerned by the scale and the speed of the epidemic,\u201d noting cases have been reported in major urban areas including Uganda\u2019s capital Kampala and the city of Goma in the DRC. <\/p>\n MONDAY, MAY 18, 2026 President Donald Trump says<\/a> he is \u201cconcerned\u201d about Ebola when asked about the outbreak at the White House.<\/p>\n Satish Pillai at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an American doctor who was exposed to the outbreak while working in the DCR has tested positive for the disease and will be medically evacuated from the Congo to Germany for care, adding that six other Americans are in the process of being evacuated from the area for treatment or monitoring. <\/p>\n The CDC says the ongoing risk to the American public is \u201clow.\u201d <\/p>\n The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security announce new travel restrictions<\/a> related to the Ebola outbreak, including enhanced public health screening for people arriving from affected areas and entry restrictions for non-U.S. passport holders who have been in Uganda, the Congo or South Sudan in the last 21 days. <\/p>\n Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, tells BBC News<\/a> more than 100 people have died from the Ebola outbreak and there are at least 395 suspected cases.<\/p>\n SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2026 Citing unnamed sources, Stat News<\/a> reports several Americans had “high-risk exposures” to Ebola while working in the Congo and says one has developed symptoms consistent with the disease. <\/p>\n The CDC says<\/a> it is working to extract a \u201csmall number of Americans who are directly affected by this outbreak\u201d from the Congo.<\/p>\n SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2026 The World Health Organization declares<\/a> the outbreak an “extraordinary event\u201d that could pose a public health risk to multiple nations and possibly require a coordinated international response in the near future.<\/p>\n The WHO announces at least 80 people have died, including one patient who died in Uganda after traveling to the neighboring country from the Congo. <\/p>\n FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2026Laboratory tests confirm the outbreak is of the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no vaccine, and the same strain that carried a 32% mortality rate during a 2007 outbreak. <\/p>\n The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention confirms<\/a> an Ebola outbreak in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reporting the disease has sickened 246 people and killed 65, and says officials are worried about further infections due to frequent travel in the area, few resources to combat spread and difficulties with contract tracing in the remote region. <\/p>\n When Did The Outbreak Begin?<\/p>\n Health officials believe the first case was weeks before the WHO stepped in and declared a public health emergency. According to the Associated Press<\/a>, the first suspected case involved a health care worker and was reported in late April, but the exact date is unclear. DRC\u2019s health minister says the person died on April 24, but the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it was on April 27. Initial testing was more focused on the more common Ebola virus strain and the first few samples tested negative. But two weeks later, authorities were able to establish that the outbreak was being caused by the rarer Bundibugyo variant of the virus.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n The ongoing Ebola outbreak marks the 17th in the DRC over the last 50 years but comes only months after another, declared over in December, killed 45 people. Most previous outbreaks<\/a> were of Ebola-Zaire strains of the virus, for which public health officials have approved vaccines, but the Bundibugyo strain spreading now has no approved vaccine or treatment method. The only way to help those infected is to provide supportive care, health officials say<\/a>, like giving medicine to support blood pressure, reduce vomiting and diarrhea, and manage fever and pain. A 2007 outbreak of Bundibugyo had a 32% fatality rate<\/a>, similar to untreated cases of smallpox and typhoid fever.<\/p>\n Surprising Fact<\/p>\n The last time Ebola was in the United States was in 2014, during a global outbreak that saw 11 cases in the country. Of those, nine people contracted the virus in West Africa and were later transported to the U.S. for specialized medical treatment. Two people died. The other two cases were identified in nurses who contracted Ebola in the United States after treating a patient in Dallas. They both survived. <\/p>\n Tangent<\/p>\n The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, established by the WHO and World Bank, on Monday warned<\/a> the world isn’t ready for another pandemic despite what was learned during the COVID outbreak six years ago. In a new report, the board said global health research, prevention and preparedness has not kept pace with an increasing frequency and intensity of infectious disease epidemics and warned any pandemic will “strike a world more divided, more indebted and less able to protect its people than it was a decade ago.<\/p>\n Further ReadingForbesU.S. Issues New Ebola Travel RestrictionsBy Mary Whitfill Roeloffs<\/a>ForbesWHO Declares Ebola Outbreak In Africa \u2018Extraordinary\u2019 Public Health EmergencyBy Zachary Folk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline More than 130 people have died in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9069,13897,36322,89402,281359,280886,97,48129,2830],"class_list":["post-652422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-american","tag-cdc","tag-congo","tag-ebola","tag-ebola-american","tag-ebola-outbreak","tag-health","tag-public-health-emergency","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}