TRACKING EMERGING VIRUSES – September 13, 2025 – Ebola
“Health officials have declared an Ebola outbreak after recording 58 suspected cases and 20 deaths from the disease.
Last week, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared the Ebola outbreak in the towns of Bulape and Mweka in the Kasai Province.
The agency added that there are no cases reported outside of the DRC and the risk of infection in the US is low.”
“However, in Kasai, residents have been placed under confinement, the province’s governor said in a statement Monday. Local officials have erected multiple checkpoints along the border to prevent people from traveling in or out of the area.
Francois Mingambengele, administrator of the Mweka territory which includes Bulape, said: ‘The problem is that we’re afraid that the movement of people from Bulape could lead to contamination in other communities.’” (1)
“Limited access and scarce funds are the key challenges facing health officials trying to respond to the latest Ebola outbreak in southern Congo, the World Health Organization said Friday.”
““While the WHO and Congolese authorities have “ramped up efforts to have a full scale response” on the ground, “we need to be able to pay for the operations,” he added.”
“WHO’s projected cost for the current outbreak over the next three months is $20 million, while Congo’s national response plan is estimated at $78 million, said Otim.
A major concern for health officials has been the impact of recent U.S. funding cuts. The U.S. had supported the response to Congo’s past Ebola outbreaks, including in 2021 when the U.S. Agency for International Development provided up to $11.5 million to support efforts across Africa.
At least four health workers are among the confirmed cases, according to Mathias Mossoko, Congo’s Ebola response coordinator in Bulape.
“For now, our priority is to vaccinate health care workers. Given the number of cases and deaths among health care providers, protecting these front line workers is essential to ensure the population receives adequate care,” he said.
“At this stage, it is not yet appropriate to declare a public health emergency,” he said.” (2)
“In coordination with the Congolese Ministry of Health and alongside the World Health Organization (WHO), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) rapidly mobilised teams and joined a multi-agency emergency mission to the area to assess the situation and support immediate response efforts.
“Our teams began supporting the General Referral hospital in Bulape almost immediately,” says Brice de le Vingne, MSF emergency coordinator. “We helped reinforce triage protocols, supplied essential medicines and personal protective equipment, and conducted training in infection prevention and control, and symptomatic care.”
An Ebola treatment centre has been established by MSF and WHO within the hospital compound, and yesterday, the facility began admitting its first patients. The Ministry of Health, MSF, and WHO teams, are jointly providing care.
In addition, MSF teams have visited surrounding health facilities to strengthen infection, prevention, and control protocols, and train healthcare workers in how to respond safely and effectively to suspected Ebola cases.
“Currently, a dozen MSF staff are present in Bulape, and we are sending in more people and tonnes of medical materials,” says de le Vingne. “We’re working hand in hand with Congolese health authorities to evaluate needs on the ground and determine where our support might also be required—such as in surveillance, community engagement, or vaccination.”” (3)
“WHO is working with the national authorities in 10 priority countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo to initiate readiness assessments and contingency planning.
In Tanzania, for example, disease surveillance is being enhanced in localities bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo to swiftly detect any cases and respond in a timely manner to halt any further transmission of the virus. In Angola, WHO is supporting the national authorities step up preparedness, especially in Lunda Norte Province, which borders Kasai Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” (4)
“The last two outbreaks, in 2022, were contained quickly, said Otim, but he noted that they were addressed before the Trump administration severely cut funding for international health programs, including the WHO.
Those cuts have fueled concern in Africa and elsewhere about the ability of individual nations and global agencies to respond to and quickly contain outbreaks of diseases including Ebola — and to keep such deadly viruses from reaching U.S. shores.
“The recent cuts will definitely have an impact,” Otim said at the briefing. “As a global community, we need to work together to stop this virus, as diseases do not respect borders.”
“What we know (from past outbreaks) is you need to get supplies and resources as soon as possible to stop transmission,” Otim added.
President Trump announced in January that the U.S. — long a key stakeholder and largest donor to the agency — would be pulling out of the WHO, with the White House citing “the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”
The Trump administration, at the time, also accused the WHO of demanding “unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.”
The WHO warned almost immediately that, given the uncertainty over future U.S. funding, it was cutting back spending in ways that could impact its operations.
Congo’s health care system was already overburdened as it battles to contain an mpox outbreak, with roughly 130,000 suspected cases since last year and about 2,000 deaths now recorded, the WHO said at the briefing last week.
Complicating the response is the fact that the nearest medical isolation unit to the outbreak only has 15 beds, and road access from Kinshasa can take up to three days, further delaying the arrival of medical teams and supplies.” (5)
The World Health Organization on Sunday said it had begun vaccinating frontline health workers and contacts of people infected with Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kasai Province, where an outbreak has been declared.
The WHO said an initial 400 doses of the Ervebo Ebola vaccine from the country’s stockpile of 2,000 doses have been delivered to Bulape, which is the outbreak’s epicentre.
The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision has approved the dispatch of some 45,000 additional Ebola vaccine doses to Congo, the organization said.” (6)
Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a warning, Dismantling global health defenses endangers everyone. https://www.statnews.com/2025/09/11/ebola-drc-kasai-outbreak-us-global-health-who-usaid/
No One in the White House Knows How to Stop Ebola, By Beth Cameron, Jon Finer, and Stephanie Psaki, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/trump-pandemic-preparedness-ebola-outbreak/683810/
1.Pandemic fears intensify as multiple towns are locked down in attempt to stop Ebola spreading, By ALEXA LARDIERI, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-15088395/health-officials-declare-Ebola-outbreak-Congo-pandemic-lockdown.html
2.Ebola vaccine reaches the epicenter of Congo’s outbreak as officials race to contain the disease, By CHINEDU ASADU and RUTH ALONGA, https://apnews.com/article/congo-ebola-vaccine-kasai-outbreak-who-0e0a872716a46bee185237478cb597ff
3.DRC: MSF supports Ebola outbreak response in Kasaï, https://www.msf.org/msf-supports-ebola-outbreak-response-drc
4.Intensifying Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, https://www.afro.who.int/countries/democratic-republic-of-congo/news/intensifying-ebola-outbreak-response-democratic-republic-congo
5.As Ebola outbreak kills 16 people in Congo, WHO official says Trump’s aid cuts “will definitely have an impact”, By Sarah Carter, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ebola-virus-outbreak-congo-deaths-trump-who-aid-cuts/
6.Ebola vaccination begins in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, WHO says, By Reuters,https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/ebola-vaccination-begins-democratic-republic-congo-who-says-2025-09-14/
curated by Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H.
Clinical Professor of Environmental Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai