Kinshasa — DRC Ebola Outbreak Threatens to Become Worst on Record

More than 7,000 people have contracted the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo since May, and roughly half of them have died, according to government data compiled by the World Health Organization and reported by Wired on Sept. 23, 2026. Nicole Lurie, executive director for preparedness and response and the U.S. director at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), told Wired the outbreak is "probably on pace to be the worst the world has ever seen."

How large has the Bundibugyo outbreak grown since May?

The case count and death toll place this outbreak in a different category from prior Ebola events, based on Lurie's comparison to her own experience at CEPI since 2017. "Other than Covid, which affected the whole world, this is the thing that has frightened me the most," she told Wired. She called it "the most rapidly growing Ebola outbreak that we've seen." No comparative case totals for the 2014 West Africa or 2018 DRC outbreaks were provided in the reporting, so the claim of a record pace rests on Lurie's assessment rather than a published dataset.

Why is this outbreak outpacing containment efforts that worked in Uganda?

Health officials ended a related outbreak in Uganda using contact tracing, isolation, and clinical care, according to Wired's reporting. That approach has not worked in the DRC because millions of people have been displaced by ongoing violence, which Lurie described as making contact tracing "a struggle." Displacement scatters exposed individuals across shifting locations, undercutting the case-by-case follow-up that halted the Uganda cluster.

What role does distrust of health workers play in the response?

Local distrust of outside humanitarian workers has compounded the displacement problem, per Wired's account. Residents have attacked Red Cross volunteers, destroyed medical equipment including ambulances, and delayed safe burial teams — all core functions of Ebola containment. Safe burial practices matter because Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids, including those of the deceased; when burial teams are delayed, transmission risk during traditional funeral practices rises. Lurie's conclusion, stated plainly to Wired: "I don't think we're going to be able to bring this to an end without a vaccine."

What vaccines are in trials, and when will results come?

CEPI redirected $100 million of internal funding toward vaccine development shortly after the first Bundibugyo cases were reported in May, according to Wired. That funding helped scientists at the Serum Institute of India manufacture doses of Oxford University's ChAdOx1 BDBV vaccine at what Wired described as record speed. A second candidate from Moderna, also backed by CEPI, has entered the same pipeline. Both vaccines have entered safety trials, with efficacy trials expected to start this month, per the Wired report published Sept. 23, 2026.

Teresa Lambe, a vaccinology and immunology professor who leads the Oxford safety trials, told Wired she pivoted from hantavirus vaccine work in May after a message from a former WHO employee prompted her to "swear out loud." She began the Ebola vaccine effort using philanthropic funding before CEPI's support was formally in place and said she has not taken a day off since. Her stated concern is not manufacturing speed but uptake: "Even if we get vaccines that are fabulous, will they be used?" Efficacy trials require the same contact tracing that has already proven difficult amid displacement, meaning vaccine rollout faces the identical logistical barriers slowing case containment.

How does this crisis compare to the pandemic response Lambe worked on before?

Lambe drew a direct contrast to Covid-19 in her Wired interview. "Covid was in some ways easier," she said, noting the absence of lockdowns or widespread public attention this time. "We're not in a situation where people even know or care about what's going on in the DRC … You're not all pulling in the same direction because day-to-day life continues." That gap in global attention sits alongside a reduction in responder capacity: Wired reported that global responder organizations have been short-staffed since the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization and dismantled USAID, though the article did not specify staffing figures for the current outbreak.

By the numbers

Two figures anchor the scale of the crisis, both from WHO-compiled DRC government data cited in Wired's Sept. 23, 2026 report: more than 7,000 confirmed Bundibugyo Ebola cases since May, and a fatality rate of roughly 50 percent among those cases. A third figure comes from CEPI's own funding decision: $100 million in internal resources redirected toward vaccine development within weeks of the outbreak's start, financing both the Oxford-developed ChAdOx1 BDBV candidate manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and a Moderna candidate now in parallel safety trials ahead of efficacy testing expected to begin this month.