Strain · BDBV
A rare ebolavirus species that, before 2026, had caused only two recognised outbreaks (Uganda 2007–2008, DRC 2012). The 2026 DRC + Uganda outbreak, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO on 17 May 2026, is the third recorded Bundibugyo outbreak. No vaccines or therapeutics approved for human use are known to be effective against Bundibugyo virus.
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What is Bundibugyo virus?
Bundibugyo ebolavirus was first identified in 2007 in Bundibugyo District, western Uganda, where it caused 149 cases and 37 deaths (CFR around 25%). A second outbreak followed in 2012 in DRC's Orientale Province (57 cases, 29 deaths, CFR around 51%). The third recognised outbreak began in early 2026 in Ituri Province, DRC, with confirmed cross-border spread to Kampala, Uganda; WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 17 May 2026. None of the four FDA-approved Ebola products (Ervebo, Zabdeno + Mvabea, Inmazeb, Ebanga) are licensed for Bundibugyo virus; all target Zaire ebolavirus glycoprotein.
Sources: CDC outbreak chronology, WHO Disease Outbreak News, ICTV taxonomy.
| Year | Location | Cases | Deaths | CFR | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Active | DRC, Uganda · Ituri Province - Bunia, Rwampara, Mongbwalu, Nyankunde, Mambasa, Fataki, Drodro, Mandima, Niania and other affected zones; North Kivu Province - Beni, Butembo, Katwa, Goma, Musienene and other zones; South Kivu Province - Miti-Murhesa; Haut-Uele Province - Isiro area (under investigation); Tshopo Province - Kisangani area (under investigation); Uganda - Kampala, Wakiso | 1,426 | 440 | 30.9% | WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 17 May 2026. Third recognised Bundibugyo virus outbreak; no approved vaccines or therapeutics target this strain. CDC says DRC has confirmed more than 1,000 cases, that the case count has risen faster than any previous Ebola outbreak to date, and that this is now the largest outbreak caused by Bundibugyo virus. CDC's case-count CSV now lists DRC at 1,406 confirmed cases and 438 confirmed deaths as of 30 June, up from 1,333 / 399 the day before, with about 210 people recovered per WHO. ECDC, last updated 1 July, still carries the preceding 1,333 confirmed cases and 399 deaths as of 29 June, with 609 individuals hospitalised in isolation and an 82.7% contact follow-up rate. Uganda holds at 20 confirmed cases and 2 confirmed deaths on its 2 July dashboard, plus one probable case and one probable death kept outside the confirmed headline tally. EbolaIntel therefore carries a confirmed DRC-plus-Uganda headline of 1,426 cases and 440 deaths, a confirmed case-fatality rate near 31%. CDC also lists one imported confirmed case in France, kept outside the DRC-plus-Uganda headline. France reported one imported confirmed Ebola case on 24 June in a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in one of the DRC transmission zones. The DRC government said the doctor worked from 22 May to 19 June at an Ebola treatment centre in Rwampara, Ituri province, then travelled through Kinshasa before flying to France on 23 June. France has isolated five possible flight contacts. EbolaIntel notes France separately and does not fold it into the DRC-plus-Uganda headline total unless WHO or ECDC include France in affected-country totals. ECDC, updated 1 July with DRC data as of 29 June, gives the latest public province breakdown, since overtaken on the national total by CDC's 30 June figure: 1,333 DRC confirmed cases and 399 confirmed deaths, with 609 individuals hospitalised in isolation and 189 recovered. ECDC places DRC cases at 1,214 confirmed cases and 335 deaths from 23 of 36 health zones in Ituri, 116 confirmed cases and 63 deaths from 11 health zones in North Kivu, and three confirmed cases and one death from one health zone in South Kivu, a total of 35 affected health zones across the three provinces, and it now lists Haut-Uele as a newly affected province identified through cases in Ituri's Nia-Nia health zone. The latest public health-zone count snapshot from WHO DON608 still lists Bunia 247, Rwampara 195, Mongbwalu 189, and Nyankunde 68. On 30 June, Reuters reported that DRC health authorities were tracing possible Ebola spread to two provinces not previously in the case count, Haut-Uele and Tshopo, both linked to Ituri's Niania health zone. In Tshopo, the body of a pregnant woman who fell ill in Niania on 18 June and died on 27 June was carried about 300 kilometres by motorcycle to Kisangani, where a sample taken at a morgue tested positive; the body had passed through several health zones before diagnosis, and authorities launched contact tracing across the province. In Haut-Uele, two contacts of Niania cases who had been placed in isolation for testing fled to the province, one testing positive and the other awaiting confirmatory testing, before both were located and returned to Niania; DRC's National Institute of Biomedical Research had earlier confirmed a Haut-Uele case to Agence France-Presse. Haut-Uele borders South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and Tshopo, whose capital Kisangani is a major Congo River hub, lies west of Ituri; Haut-Uele's involvement means the whole of DRC's northeast, home to about 15 million people, is now affected. Tshopo remains under investigation and is not folded into the confirmed DRC-plus-Uganda headline. The same day, the DRC Interior Ministry banned political rallies, public marches and other mass gatherings in Kinshasa and the northeastern provinces of Tshopo, Haut-Uele and Bas-Uele to limit physical contact, and President Tshisekedi announced a national response plan budgeted at US$319 million, with initial emergency funds already mobilised. ECDC's 1 July update now lists Haut-Uele as a newly affected province, identified through cases in Ituri's Nia-Nia health zone, but has not published a separate health-zone case count for Haut-Uele or Tshopo. DRC's reported contact follow-up rate has risen to 82.7%, up from 81.3% on 30 June. WHO reports 6,367 DRC contacts identified across Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, with 4,525 followed up in the DON608 timing snapshot. On 25 June, Xinhua reported the latest DRC contact follow-up rate at 77.1%, and on 29 June Xinhua reported that 178 DRC patients have recovered. WHO officials still warn that contact tracing is below the level needed, while treatment and isolation capacity, safe burials, insecurity, humanitarian access, mobile mining communities, misinformation, disrupted burials, and pressure on health workers continue to constrain the response. Uganda reports 20 confirmed cases and 2 deaths on the 2 July dashboard, unchanged on the headline count: 15 imported cases, 5 local cases, 16 recoveries, 2 current admissions, 2,152 people tested, 831 contacts listed, 0 active contacts under follow-up, 821 completed 21-day follow-ups, 604 alerts, 594 verified alerts, and 5,465 travellers screened at points of entry (2,105 inbound, 1,714 outbound). ECDC says Uganda's most recent confirmed case was reported on 21 June and that no new confirmed cases had been reported since. WHO says Uganda has no documented community transmission, with exposure risks linked to healthcare settings and cross-border movements. Xinhua reports WHO emergency official Abdirahman Mahamud saying this is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa. Xinhua also reports Tedros saying treatment capacity has increased from fewer than 10 beds to more than 500 beds across 19 health centres, while laboratory capacity has expanded from about 30 tests per day in Kinshasa to more than 2,000 tests per day across nine laboratories in three provinces. ECDC reports an attack on a safe and dignified burial team in Mongbwalu health zone and reports that five workers were taken hostage at points of entry/control after false accusations that they were spreading Ebola disease through their work. AP reports the burial of a 6-month-old child in Bunia, the third child from an orphanage to die during the outbreak, and says the response is being complicated by clashes over disrupted burials and militarised response measures at times. WHO and Africa CDC launched a six-month US$518 million continental preparedness and response plan on 5 June, covering June-November 2026 and prioritising surveillance, laboratory testing, IPC, clinical care, community engagement, logistics, research, and essential health services in DRC, Uganda, and at-risk neighbouring countries. Uganda and Rwanda have both closed their borders with DRC. CDC said on 18 June that it had more than 125 staff working in DRC and Uganda and had accessed US$107 million in emergency funding to strengthen the international response and domestic readiness. WHO assesses DRC risk as very high, Uganda risk as high, countries sharing land borders with documented BDBV detection as high, and risk to the rest of the African Region and globally as low. WHO advises against travel or trade restrictions on DRC or Uganda. CDC says no US cases have been confirmed because of this outbreak and risk to the US public and travellers remains low. On 2 July, the UN Development Programme estimated the outbreak could cut DRC economic output by about 1.6%, more than US$1 billion, eliminate about 55,000 jobs and push nearly one million more people into poverty, with Africa-wide losses of US$2.37 billion to US$3.6 billion depending on how far the outbreak spreads. On 17 June, WHO issued comprehensive filovirus clinical-management guidelines that cover Bundibugyo virus disease and stress early recognition, rapid referral, optimized supportive care, laboratory monitoring, careful rehydration, shock management, antibiotics when bacterial infection is present, and structured after-care for survivors. Following an expert consultation convened on 28 May, WHO advisory groups concluded that Ervebo, licensed only for Zaire ebolavirus, should not be used outside carefully designed research settings for Bundibugyo, because evidence of cross-protection to other Ebola virus species remains limited and inconclusive. WHO stressed that all identified candidates should be used exclusively within clinical trials to generate reliable data. On 2 July, WHO announced that patient enrolment had begun in the PARTNERS trial, the Platform Adaptive Randomised Trial for New and Repurposed Filovirus TreatmentS, the first clinical trial of treatments for Bundibugyo virus disease. The first patient was enrolled in Bunia; the trial is sponsored by WHO and coordinated by the Congolese National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB), the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, and the University of Oxford, with support from Africa CDC. Patients of any age with confirmed disease are randomised to standard care alone, standard care plus MBP134, standard care plus remdesivir, or both drugs plus standard care, with mortality at 28 days as the primary endpoint; the trial aims to recruit 700 to 1,000 participants over six months. The United States and Gilead Sciences are donating the trial doses. On 1 June, CEPI committed up to US$62 million to accelerate three Bundibugyo vaccine candidates: up to US$50 million for a Moderna mRNA candidate, US$8.6 million for the Oxford ChAdOx1 BDBV candidate, and US$3.2 million for the IAVI rVSV-BDBV candidate. |
| 2012 | DRC · Orientale Province | 57 | 29 | 50.9% | Second recognised Bundibugyo virus outbreak. The 2026 outbreak shares geographic proximity (Ituri Province sits in the former Orientale Province area). |
| 2007–2008 | Uganda · Bundibugyo District | 149 | 37 | 24.8% | First recognised Bundibugyo virus outbreak. The only one in the species record until the 2012 DRC and 2026 DRC + Uganda outbreaks. |
