The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak, the second largest on record with 3,874 confirmed cases and 1,751 deaths as of Aug. 3, 2026, is expanding faster than the international response, according to the World Health Organization.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is spreading faster than the international response, during his second visit to the country since the crisis was declared in mid-May. The warning comes as some frontline health workers in Ituri Province, the outbreak epicenter, are on strike over unpaid wages, further straining access to care.
“We all agree that we must urgently and massively scale up all our efforts across all pillars of the response and by all partners,” says Tedros Adhanom, Director General, WHO, following meetings with government officials and health partners in Kinshasa. New cases are doubling in some hotspots, he adds, nearly three months after the outbreak was first detected.
The DRC has confirmed 3,874 Ebola cases and 1,751 deaths as of Monday, according to the country’s Ministry of Health, making the outbreak the second largest ever recorded, trailing only the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic, which totaled more than 28,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths. The WHO designated the crisis a public health emergency of international concern in May, citing the rapid spread of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which no approved vaccine or treatment exists.
The outbreak has drawn sustained international attention in part because of its unprecedented speed. WHO officials have noted that at least 60% to 70% of new infections are being identified outside established contact-tracing networks, undermining efforts to isolate the chain of transmission early. Late detection remains a central driver of the outbreak’s roughly 45% fatality rate, authorities said, with 44 of the 77 most recently reported cases proving fatal within a 24-hour period.
For Mexico, a global health emergency of this scale carries direct relevance beyond humanitarian concern. Mexico’s Ministry of Health reinforced epidemiological surveillance and airport screening protocols earlier this year as it prepared to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, citing the outbreak as a factor in tightening cross-border health monitoring, reports Mexico Business News. Minister of Health David Kershenobich said at the time that Mexico had not detected any Ebola cases and that transmission risk remained low, while advising against nonessential travel to the DRC, Uganda, and Sudan.
The crisis has also intersected with Mexico’s broader health cooperation agenda. The WHO-backed EBO-PEP trial, which began testing Gilead Sciences’ antiviral obeldesivir as a post-exposure treatment in the DRC and Uganda in July, reflects the type of emergency-response infrastructure referenced in the Country Cooperation Strategy 2026-2030 that Mexico’s Ministry of Health signed with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the WHO, which prioritizes regional self-sufficiency in biologics and regulatory harmonization. Gilead maintains an established regulatory and commercial presence in Mexico, meaning a successful trial outcome could accelerate regional approval pathways for post-exposure antivirals.
The United States Department of State announced an additional US$242 million in funding Wednesday for immediate Ebola response, preparedness, and humanitarian assistance in the region, bringing total US direct assistance to more than US$512 million, according to the department. The medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said the outbreak continues to spread at an alarming, unprecedented pace, warning that the scaled-up response is still not reaching communities quickly enough to break transmission chains.
In Bunia, the capital of Ituri, residents say the wage dispute among frontline workers has compounded an already dire situation, with some families reporting deaths they attribute to delayed access to treatment during the strike. Although some workers have begun receiving back pay for services rendered since the outbreak began, unions representing health personnel continue to demand improved compensation for high-risk work. Uganda, which declared its own outbreak linked to imported cases from the DRC, reported 20 confirmed infections and two deaths, and its health ministry said the figures reflect the commitment of health workers and communities even as the country remains at risk of further spread.
The current outbreak follows 16 previous Ebola outbreaks in the DRC, including a 2018-2020 crisis in North Kivu that Tedros personally oversaw through 14 visits to the region. That outbreak, like the current one, was complicated by community mistrust and attacks on health workers and facilities. The Bundibugyo strain driving the present crisis has historically been rarer than the more commonly documented Zaire strain, which has limited the availability of species-specific vaccines and treatments and left responders reliant on experimental interventions such as the EBO-PEP trial.