Large Ebola Outbreak Is Declared in Congo

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Dozens of deaths and hundreds of infections are suspected, an African agency said. Health experts were alarmed that the outbreak hadn’t been announced sooner. Africa’s leading public health authority said on Friday that there was an outbreak of the Ebola virus in a province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with dozens of deaths and hundreds of infections suspected.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the public health agency of the African Union, said 65 deaths from Ebola had been reported in the northeastern province of Ituri, though only four had been definitively linked to the virus through laboratory testing. The agency said that 246 suspected infections had been reported in Ituri and that 13 had been confirmed.

The agency said it was working with Congo’s health ministry on a response to the outbreak. The results of tests to determine the specific species of the virus circulating in Ituri are expected within 24 hours, it said in a statement. It is the 17th recorded Ebola outbreak in Congo since the virus was first identified in 1976.

Some global health experts said they were alarmed that the first reports of the outbreak emerged so late in its development. “It’s pretty stunning to have first notice of an outbreak in D.R.C., which is very experienced, and have it be so large,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. Outbreaks are typically picked up much earlier by the World Health Organization, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or by news reports, she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/world/africa/congo-ebola-outbreak.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ilA.fXJI.yZ9K-kJNiqtA&smid=url-share

Nice work, RFK Jr and TSF