Ebola BVD

Summary

This section is a summary of the current situation with key developments since the last update.

Since early May, an outbreak of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD) has been spreading in the DRC and neighboring Uganda, and has now spread to France. Global.health is tracking confirmed cases using a mix of official and unofficial sources to build an epidemiological line list, presenting the data in this report via cumulative epi curves, weekly case incidence, and health zone-level breakdowns to help monitor the outbreak's trajectory in near real-time.

Currently, there are 4966 confirmed cases, including 2327 confirmed deaths, in 3 countries.

Table 1. Outbreak Summary. Number of new and total confirmed cases and deaths by country. Data as of August 15th 2026.

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Confirmed Cases New: 651 Total: 4945	Confirmed Deaths New: 365 Total: 2325
Uganda
Confirmed Cases New: 0 Total: 20	Confirmed Deaths New: 0 Total: 2
France
Confirmed Cases New: 0 Total: 1	Confirmed Deaths New: 0 Total: 0

Epidemiological Update

This section includes an epidemiological update with an epi curve, weekly case incidence, age and gender distribution, data availability chart, symptoms figure, and genomic data.

Case Definitions:

WHO surveillance case definitions:

• any person, alive or dead, suffering or having suffered from sudden onset of high fever, and had contact with: a suspected, probable, or confirmed Ebola case, or a dead or sick animal; OR
• any person with sudden onset of high fever, AND at least three of the following symptoms: headache, lethargy, anorexia/loss of appetite, aching muscles or joints, stomach pain, difficulty swallowing, vomiting, difficulty breathing, diarrhoea, hiccups; OR
• any person with inexplicable bleeding; OR
• any sudden, inexplicable death.

• any suspected case evaluated by a clinician, OR
• any deceased suspected case-patient (where it has not been possible to collect specimens for laboratory confirmation) having an epidemiological link with a confirmed case.

• any suspected or probable case-patient with a positive laboratory result (detection of Ebola virus by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), or detection of Immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies directed against Ebola viruses).

• any suspected or probable case-patient with a negative laboratory result (showing no specific antibodies, ribonucleic acid (RNA) or specific detectable antigens) more than 72 hours after symptom onset.

• any person having had direct physical contact with the bodily fluids of a sick or deceased person or indirect contact through contaminated surfaces, material, or equipment, such as needles or soiled clothes, within the past 21 day.

Source: WHO Ebola Virus Outbreak Toolkit

Context & Background

Ebola disease is caused by a group of viruses, known as orthoebolaviruses (formerly ebolavirus), that can cause serious illness and death.

Ebola disease first occurred in 1976 in two simultaneous, but distinct, outbreaks in what are now South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, affecting a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name. Since then, it has caused repeated outbreaks across Central and West Africa with an average Ebola disease case fatality rate around 50%. Most people are familiar with the strain behind the devastating 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak — the largest ever recorded — but Ebola actually refers to six distinct viral species, and crucially, not all of them have the same tools available to fight them. That distinction is at the heart of why the current outbreak is so alarming.

The strain now circulating in this 2026 outbreak is Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD), first identified in Uganda in 2007 and seen again in the DRC in 2012. Like other Ebola strains, it spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids, unsafe burial practices, and inadequate infection control in healthcare settings, with fruit bats suspected as the original source of transmission to humans.

One of the biggest challenges with BVD is that it's hard to identify early on. Initial symptoms — fever, fatigue, headache — look a lot like malaria or other common illnesses, making it easy to miss until the disease has already spread. From there, it can progress rapidly to severe gastrointestinal illness, organ failure, and internal bleeding.

Unlike some other Ebola strains, there is no approved vaccine or treatment for BVD. Historical outbreaks have killed between 30% and 50% of those infected. The response therefore depends on getting the basics right: finding cases quickly, isolating patients, tracing contacts, implementing infection prevention and control measures, ensuring safe burials, and engaging affected communities (RCCE). In a stable environment, that's a tall order. In a conflict-affected region with large displaced populations and stretched healthcare infrastructure, it becomes exponentially harder.

2026 Outbreak

DRC: In early May 2026, the WHO was notified of a deadly, unidentified illness in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), including the deaths of several healthcare workers. After rapid response teams investigated, the illness was confirmed as Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD), a strain of Ebola, prompting the DRC government to officially declare its 17th Ebola outbreak on May 15th.

The outbreak is believed to have originated in Mongbwalu, a busy mining area, before spreading to nearby health zones as infected individuals traveled seeking medical care. Containment has been made significantly more difficult by the region's challenging conditions — including ongoing instability, large refugee populations, and constant cross-border movement driven by trade and mining activity. Contact tracing is further hampered by difficult terrain and highly mobile populations, raising the risk that high-risk contacts go unidentified or are lost to follow-up.

Ituri's role as a regional migration and commerce hub, bordering both Uganda and South Sudan, heightens the risk of regional spread, particularly if border screening and cross-border coordination are not rapidly strengthened. Those concerns proved well-founded when Uganda confirmed an imported BVD case on May 15th involving a Congolese man who died in Kampala, signaling the outbreak had already crossed international borders. With transmission extending beyond DRC and the situation showing no signs of slowing, the WHO Director-General declared the event a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on May 17th.

Uganda: Uganda confirmed its first imported case of BVD on May 15th, involving a Congolese man who had traveled to Kampala and later died. Since then, the outbreak has grown to 20 confirmed cases and one probable case, with four total deaths recorded so far. Of the confirmed cases, 15 are travel-related imports and five reflect secondary transmission among contacts and health workers linked to those imported cases. There is currently no documented community transmission in Uganda.

France: France reported its first confirmed case of BVD on June 24th, involving a healthcare worker who had returned from a humanitarian mission in an affected area of the DRC. The case was travel-related, with the patient in stable condition after being immediately admitted to a specialized facility upon return, with isolation and secure hospital transfer implemented to prevent onward transmission. There is no secondary transmission linked to this case, and it remains the only confirmed BVD case reported in France to date.

This remains an evolving public health event.

Data & Analytical Notes

1. Suspected cases. Global.health's line list includes DRC suspected case data through INSP Situation Report 13 (data as of May 27, 2026; n=906), the last report to provide health zone-level detail. Subsequent reports have aggregated suspected cases and deaths at the province or country level only, and publicly available sources do not allow Global.health to reconcile or discard earlier suspected cases against these later figures. As a result, suspected case counts in the line list should be treated as a partial, time-limited snapshot rather than a current total. Global.health separately curates aggregate suspected case data over time; this is available upon request.
2. Recoveries. Recovery outcomes are not consistently available at the health zone level in official DRC sources, including INSP Situation Reports, and are therefore not systematically reflected in the individual cases in the Global.health line list. Global.health separately curates aggregate recovery data over time; this is available upon request.
3. Data Availability. The Global.health line list is built from a mix of official and unofficial public sources. Reporting granularity varies and often lacks case-level detail, which limits the completeness and consistency of dataset parameters.
4. "Data Period" refers to the epidemiological week (Sunday through Saturday) covered by the data in this week's briefing report. The source's publication date may fall outside this window, but all data included pertains to events occurring within the stated period.
5. Reporting Discrepancies in SitRep59. Global.health observed multiple reporting errors and inconsistencies on INSP SitRep59. Health zone (HZ)-level data did not reconcile with the reported provincial or national sums for confirmed cases or deaths. For example, Global.health's calculated sum of HZ-level confirmed cases for Ituri province totaled 1,706, against a reported provincial total of 1,772 in the SitRep — a discrepancy of nearly 70 confirmed cases. Notably, the HZ-level data reported for Ituri showed decreases in case counts relative to the prior report, which is inconsistent with the reporting trends observed elsewhere in the SitRep series. Given these discrepancies, curators were unable to confidently reconcile or incorporate SitRep59 data into the linelist. Data from SitRep59 has therefore been omitted, and the linelist jumps directly from data reported in SitRep58 to SitRep60. Further, these errors coincided with a substantial shift in the overall report's format, including changes to its styling and content structure.
6. Data Harmonization Increase in SitRep69. Curators observed a significant increase in confirmed cases and confirmed deaths between DRC’s INSP Situation Report (SitRep)68 and SitRep69. According to the report, this increase "results primarily from the integration of harmonized provincial bases and do not solely reflect new notifications from the last 24 hours." Global.health has adjusted DRC’s data to reflect these latest cumulative counts; as a result, users will notice an atypical increase in cases and deaths recorded on this date. Further, not all health zones observed an increase, some counts decreased as data were harmonized.
7. Reporting Gap (28–29 July 2026). INSP Situation Reports (SitReps) 75 and 76 were not publicly released. As a result, no official surveillance data are available for DRC on 28 July 2026 or 29 July 2026 from this source.The absence of data for these dates reflects a gap in public reporting and should not be interpreted as a change in outbreak activity.
8. Health Zone Data Not Published (SitRep 84 onward). Starting with SitRep 84, the structure and content of the INSP Situation Report changed, and Table 2.2, which previously provided health zone-level data, was no longer included. As a result, curators are unable to populate health zone data beyond SitRep 83. Only province-level confirmed cases and confirmed deaths for the DRC have been added to subsequent reports. It is unknown whether the report structure will change again in future reporting cycles. Health zone data will be added if it becomes feasible to do so.
9. Missing Health Zone Data in SitReps 84–87. SitReps 84–87 did not include health zone (HZ)-level data. For these reporting periods, confirmed cases and deaths were therefore initially added at the province level using the aggregate counts reported in the SitReps. HZ-level data reappeared in SitRep88. However, because HZ-level data were unavailable for SitReps 84–87, curators cannot reliably reconstruct incremental daily HZ-level counts for 2026-08-06 through 2026-08-09. HZ-level data were subsequently re-added using the SitRep 88 reporting date (2026-08-10). The apparent increase in case counts associated with the reappearance of HZ-level data in SitRep 88 primarily reflects the integration of harmonized HZ-level data and should not be interpreted solely as new notifications reported during the preceding 24-hour period.
10. Unassigned Deaths Reported as A ventiler. Beginning with SitRep 88, some confirmed deaths were reported under the category a ventiler, meaning “to be sorted” or “to be assigned.” Curators have used this category to account for confirmed deaths that were reported at the province level but could not yet be assigned to a specific health zone. These deaths have been added to the linelist as a separate line item rather than attributed to an individual health zone. This approach preserves the reported aggregate while allowing the records to be reassigned or removed from the a ventiler category if HZ-level data are subsequently released and the deaths can be reliably attributed to specific health zones.
    The following location comment was added to these records: “Il s'agit des décès confirmés survenus dans les différents CTE de la province et sont en cours de ventilation pour être classifiés par zone de santé.” (“These are confirmed deaths that occurred in the province's various Treatment Centers (CTEs); the data are currently being broken down for classification by health zone.”).

Curator Notes

1. Date_death. Outcome is an optional field indicating the disease outcome for each case. When "Death" is selected as the Outcome, a corresponding Date_death must be entered in the line list; where more specific information isn't available, curators default to the Date of Report. In many instances, Date_confirmation and Date_death will match, consistent with established curation procedures designed to maintain consistency across records. In situations where a death is reported without an associated case, curators assign the death to the most recent case on record for that health zone that does not yet have an outcome assigned. This approach introduces some assumptions and bias but preserves a usable record of deaths by report date.
2. Date_recovery Outcome is an optional field indicating the disease outcome for each case. When "Recovered" is selected as the Outcome, a corresponding Date_recovery must be entered in the line list; where more specific information isn't available, curators default to the date of the report from the Source. On July 16, 2026, Uganda's Ministry of Health announced the discharge of the country's last remaining patient. A total of 20 confirmed EVD cases were recorded during the outbreak, including two deaths, with the remaining 18 cases classified as recovered. Global.health recorded Date_recovered as the date of the report from the Source for most recovered cases, since prior attempts to assign outcome data lacked sufficient case-level detail to record a specific recovery date. This approach introduces some assumptions and bias but preserves a usable record of the total number of recoveries versus deaths for the country.

References

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3. World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa. Ebola virus disease FAQ - vaccine. Accessed July 2, 2026.
4. Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Bundibugyo virus: what it is and what it is not. Accessed July 2, 2026.
5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ebola outbreaks: historical data. Accessed July 2, 2026.
6. World Health Organization. Ebola disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo. Disease Outbreak News. Published May 16, 2026. Accessed July 2, 2026.
7. World Health Organization. Ebola disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo. Disease Outbreak News. Published May 16, 2026. Accessed July 2, 2026.
8. World Health Organization. Ebola disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo. Disease Outbreak News. Published May 29, 2026. Accessed July 2, 2026.
9. World Health Organization. Ebola disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo. Disease Outbreak News. Published June 8, 2026. Accessed July 2, 2026.
10. World Health Organization. Ebola disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo. Disease Outbreak News. Published June 13, 2026. Accessed July 2, 2026.
11. World Health Organization. Ebola disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo. Disease Outbreak News. Published June 19, 2026. Accessed July 2, 2026.
12. World Health Organization. Ebola outbreak - DRC 2026. Situation overview. Accessed July 2, 2026.
13. World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa. Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda. Weekly External Situation Report 01. Accessed July 2, 2026.