The authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have launched a vaccination campaign against Ebola aimed at frontline personnel combating the outbreak declared in mid-May in the east of the country, an episode that already totals almost 5,800 infections and around 2,800 deaths, according to the most recent balance released by the Government.
The initiative was presented by the Minister of Health, Roger Kamba, in the city of Kisangani, the capital of the Tshopo province. The Director General of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), Mwamba Kazadi Dieudonné, also attended the event as part of the authorities' strategy to curb the spread of the virus.
The INSP emphasized in a statement that "In Kisangani, a decisive step has been taken with the start of vaccination for frontline workers," and specified that "this campaign prioritizes health personnel and frontline workers in the provinces of Tshopo, Haut-Uele, and Bas-Uele, with the aim of strengthening their protection and consolidating the continuity of essential health services."
In this regard, the agency highlighted that "vaccination is one of the levers of the overall response strategy, along with epidemiological surveillance, case management, infection prevention and control, risk communication, and community participation," while stressing that "the protection of personnel involved in the response is a priority to ensure effective, coordinated, and lasting work against the epidemic."
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is currently no authorized vaccine or treatment. To date, 5,794 confirmed cases have been recorded, with 2,789 deaths and 1,293 people discharged, according to the latest count published by the Congolese Ministry of Communication on social media. Additionally, 843 patients remain in isolation.
The announcement of the immunization campaign came just hours after Uganda declared the end of its own outbreak, linked to that of the DRC, after the 42-day period without new infections since the discharge of the last patient. In the neighboring country, 20 cases and two deaths were confirmed.
The epidemic episode in the DRC has already become the deadliest in its history, surpassing that recorded between 2018 and 2020, and projections indicate that it could even exceed the major outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, which caused 28,616 infections and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The DRC —which in December 2025 declared another outbreak in the Kasai region concluded— is considered the country with the greatest global experience in managing the Ebola virus, having faced more than a dozen outbreaks since the pathogen was identified in 1976 in a double focus, one of them in the Congolese locality of Yambuku, located on the banks of the Ebola River, which gave the disease its name.