Geneva. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international public health emergency on Sunday (local time), its second highest alert level, due to the outbreak of a rare strain of Ebola affecting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda.

The WHO “determines that Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC),” the global health body in Geneva said in a statement.

He added that the outbreak “does not meet the criteria” to be classified as a pandemic.

PHEIC was previously the highest alert level for an epidemic under the International Health Regulations (IHR), a legally binding framework for WHO State Parties.

But the amendments adopted in June 2024 introduced a higher level of alert: that of “emergency due to a pandemic.”

Ebola, which causes an extremely contagious hemorrhagic fever, remains fearsome despite recent vaccines and treatments, effective only against the Zaire strain, responsible for the largest epidemics on record.

The DRC is currently hard hit by the Bundibugyo variant of Ebola, against which there is no vaccine.

As of May 16, the WHO confirmed eight laboratory cases and 246 suspected cases, in addition to 80 suspicious deaths in the province of Ituri, in the east of the country.

It also confirmed another case in Kinshasa and a death in Uganda among travelers who had recently returned from Ituri.

For its part, the African Union health agency has recorded 88 deaths probably due to the virus out of a total of 336 suspected cases, according to the latest figures published on Saturday.

Ituri, a gold region bordering Uganda and South Sudan, registers intense population movements linked to mining activity.

Access to certain areas, affected by armed violence, is difficult for security reasons.

Few laboratory samples

Given that the focus of the outbreak is in an area that is difficult to access, few samples have been analyzed in the laboratory and the balance sheets are mostly based on suspected cases.

“For two weeks we have been seeing people dying,” said Isaac Nyakulinda, a civil society representative from the city of Rwampara (Ituri), contacted by phone by AFP.

“There is no place to isolate the sick. They die at home and their bodies are handled by their family members,” he added.

The DRC had already suffered an Ebola outbreak between August and December 2025, with at least 34 deaths. The deadliest outbreak there caused nearly 2,300 deaths among 3,500 patients, between 2018 and 2020.

“The Bundibugyo strain has no vaccine and no specific treatment,” Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba stressed on Saturday.

Transmission of the virus between humans occurs through bodily fluids or exposure to the blood of an infected person, living or deceased.

Infected people only become contagious after the onset of symptoms, and the incubation period can last up to 21 days.

The virus has caused more than 15 thousand deaths in Africa in the last 50 years.

This outbreak is the seventeenth in the DRC since the disease was identified in 1976 in Zaire, the country’s former name.

Other countries on the continent have been affected by the virus in recent years, especially Guinea and Sierra Leone.