The World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union’s health agency (Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention – Africa CDC) have announced a massive joint emergency plan budgeted at $518 million to combat and contain the devastating Ebola outbreak rapidly spreading across the conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring Uganda.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Friday that this emergency strategy, developed in close collaboration with the Africa CDC, will run for the next six months, from June to November.
This major financial and technical initiative will primarily focus on emergency coordination, disease surveillance, laboratory testing, infection prevention and control, clinical care, and large-scale community engagement and mobilization.
This new international initiative comes as authorities race against time to control the deadly virus, which is spreading at an alarming rate. The outbreak was officially declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on May 15. In just a matter of weeks, it has infected at least 452 people, claiming 82 lives.
According to the latest situation report released by the DRC’s Ministry of Health, the virus has reached a stage of “rapid and continuous community transmission.” Alarmingly, 71 new cases were laboratory-confirmed within just a single 24-hour period.
The outbreak has also crossed the DRC border into neighboring Uganda, where authorities announced three additional cases on Friday. This brings Uganda’s total number of confirmed Ebola cases to 19, with two deaths reported so far.
The current outbreak involves the rare Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, which officials believe had been spreading silently under the radar among the population for some time. The Africa CDC noted that the current wave is already significantly larger and more severe than the previous Bundibugyo outbreaks recorded in 2007 and 2012.
Speaking at a press conference, Dr. Tedros Adhanom expressed optimism that the health plan drafted by the WHO and Africa CDC would successfully bring the outbreak “under control.”
“The objective is straightforward: we need to stop the outbreak where it is, support countries that are responding today, and ensure that neighboring countries are ready to detect and act quickly if cases appear,” Tedros stated.
He added, “This is a practical plan. It sets out what we need to do now, together, to contain the current outbreak and reduce the risk of further spread.”
Meanwhile, officials from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Friday that without a robust, coordinated public health response, the current crisis could escalate to rival the historic and devastating 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic. While three potential vaccines are currently under research and set to be fast-tracked for trials, there is still no officially approved vaccine for this specific strain.
As the shadow of the Ebola threat looms large over the East African region, the situation has taken a different turn in neighboring Kenya. Despite the country having recorded zero cases of the disease, plans by the United States to construct an Ebola quarantine station on Kenyan soil for American citizens have sparked intense public fury.
The plan dictates that Americans who contract Ebola while overseas will be flown to this center in Kenya rather than being allowed back home to the United States.
This has triggered massive backlash from local residents in the town of Nanyuki. Hundreds of Kenyans marched through the streets on Monday and Tuesday near the Laikipia Air Base, staging demonstrations outside the planned site while carrying a symbolic “Ebola coffin.”
The demonstrations turned violent on Monday, resulting in clashes that left at least two people dead and one seriously injured. Despite the unrest, Kenyan President William Ruto has staunchly defended the move, arguing that hosting the facility at the military base is crucial for Kenya’s strategic health partnership with the United States. President Ruto maintained that allowing the U.S. to build the quarantine station was ultimately “the right thing to do.”
