Ebola may have been running rampant in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since January, with local officials tracing the latest outbreak of the killer virus back to a patient zero at the turn of the year.
But, for some reason, that information was withheld from international NGOs by medical officials until last week, with local medics admitting that they believe the 2026 outbreak began with a patient treated at a hospital in the eastern DRC village of Rwampara.Local medics say patient zero presented to hospital in late January and died in February. The Telegraph reports the patient went on to infect eight healthcare workers before dying.
View 5 ImagesMONGBWALU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO – MAY 20: A patient prepares to have blood drawn for a test at General Referral Hospital of Mongbwalu during the Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of Congo
In the months that have followed, there have been at least 1,077 suspected cases and 223 deaths linked back to the rare Bundibugyo strain that has come from the DRC in recent months. There have also been nine cases in neighbouring Uganda.If information from the local healthcare workers is confirmed, the information that has just come to light means that the horror virus has been spreading unchecked for months.The 2026 outbreak is the third-largest outbreak of Ebola ever recorded and was only officially confirmed by the Congolese Ministry of Health on May 15. That would mean the virus has had months to run rampant in communities unchecked.
View 5 ImagesMONGBWALU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO – MAY 24: Health workers wearing protective equipment carry the body of a suspected Ebola victim during safe burial procedures outside a family home in the community of Mongbwaluon May 24, 2026
The World Health Organisation (WHO) previously believed the index case was a healthcare worker in Bunia in the DRC, who developed symptoms of Ebola on April 25 and later died.As well as a slew of international NGOs, the updated health information was also shared with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Action Aid, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).IRC Senior Technical Emergency Health Advisor Rachel Howard said: “The true scale of this Ebola outbreak is likely far worse than official figures suggest”.“When four out of five contacts are not being traced, it becomes incredibly difficult to contain the outbreak or even understand its true scale. We’re especially concerned about the virus spreading to other countries like Burundi or South Sudan,” Ms Howard added.If the outbreak did in fact start way back in January, many thousands more people may have been exposed to the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which is notoriously different to keep under control and has no licensed vaccines or treatments known.
View 5 ImagesA displaced woman wears a mask as she sits outside her shelter in the Kigonze camp in Bunia. (Photo by Glody MURHABAZI / AFP via Getty Images)(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Only 20 per cent of people known to have close contact with Ebola patients in the DRC since the official outbreak date in April have been since been contact traced. Thousands are still unaccounted for – and there is no knowing what that figure would be if the Bundibugyo ebolavirus has been running rampant since January.Containment efforts have been further hampered in Africa thanks to volatile security situations, as well as community mistrust and conspiracy theories, made all the worst by relatives who have been blocked from burying their family members who have died from the hellish disease.Last week, a treatment centre in Rwampara run by MSF was attacked by a group of people who were trying to retrieve the bodies of their relatives who had died of Ebola – bodies that would still be contaminated with the deadly disease.
And, to make matters worse, nearly one million people have been displaced by conflict in the DRC’s Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak and one of the most troubled areas of the DRC, where armed groups, rebels linked to the Islamic State, and community militias regularly carry out massacres.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Ituri in the DRC last week amid the outbreak and said more international support was needed to curb the virus’s spread.
Health workers on the ground lack basic supplies such as face masks, but the international health agency is struggling, having received a fraction of the financial support needed to assist on the ground.
View 5 ImagesDirector-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus(Image: Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
More funding is needed to help pay for distributing testing kits, setting up treatment tents, and carrying out contact tracing. While the British government did pledge £21 million to the DRC just last week to help containment efforts. Although funds are needed, critics have been quick to point out those millions of pounds are just five per cent oft the aid sent by the UK to tackle the 2014 outbreak in West Africa in 2014.The UK and other western nations have dramatically cut their aid budgets to put that cash towards defence.The US, for example, saw aid cuts across the board when the Trump administration came into power. The US withdrew funding from WHO, dissolved the US Agency for International Development (USAID), made cutbacks at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and is in the process of reducing the total health aid it gives to DRC and Uganda, the countries at the centre of the latest Ebola outbreak.All of the above measures have weakened global health systems that are vital when it comes to responding to outbreaks like the one we are now seeing in the DRC.