TOPSHOT - Members of a Congolese Red Cross team wearing personal protective equipment carry the body of a woman suspected of having died from Ebola virus disease, placing it in a coffin ahead of her safe burial at her home in Bunia on June 7, 2026. (AFP)
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general on June 8 visited Uganda, where a deadly Ebola outbreak has killed two people out of 19 infections after spreading from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo( DRC).
“I am in Uganda, where the government has mounted a prompt and capable response to the outbreak of Ebola,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
“Screening at the borders helped detect cases arriving from neighboring DRC, and the country’s surveillance, testing and case management systems are doing steady work.”
In an updated toll on June 7, the DRC government said the country had 488 confirmed cases and 86 deaths in the epidemic, which it announced on May 15.
The WHO has reported another 19 cases in neighboring Uganda.
The European Commission said in a statement that a “humanitarian air bridge” to Bunia, which it has established with UNICEF, flew in the 100 tons of aid.
There is no specific vaccine or treatment for the Bundibugyo Ebola strain behind the latest outbreak.
The WHO has declared an international public health emergency over the outbreak, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned could swell to become the largest Ebola epidemic on record.
The virus can cause a deadly hemorrhagic fever that, in the latest strain, has a fatality rate of up to 50 percent.
