The World Health Organization (WHO) has requested the establishment of a six-month humanitarian truce with the aim of intensifying the response to Ebola and cutting the chain of transmission of the disease. The outbreak, active since mid-May, has already become the deadliest recorded in the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with more than 2,700 deaths.
From Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, the regional director of the WHO for East Africa, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, has emphasized that "the challenge at this moment does not lie in knowledge or tools," stressing that technical resources exist, but a significant portion of the affected people remains out of reach of health teams.
For this reason, he insisted that access to isolated communities constitutes the main obstacle to the health response. In this context, he has asked the opposing parties, including the Army and the rebel group March 23 Movement (M23), as well as the numerous militias active in the area, to agree to a pause in hostilities so that medical teams "can safely and unobstructedly access the affected communities."
Janabi has reiterated that "when we manage to reach the population, we stop the transmission. When we cannot, the virus continues to spread," a dynamic exacerbated by the fact that the variant responsible for the outbreak, Bundibugyo, lacks a vaccine and approved treatment.
In a joint statement, Janabi, the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa), Jean Kaseya, have emphasized that health teams "work under extraordinary pressure, often in unsafe or hard-to-reach areas."
They have also stressed that "their work must be accompanied by concrete actions: security, protective equipment, training, sufficient medical supplies, timely payment, psychosocial support, and access to rapid diagnostics and high-quality supportive care in case of illness. The safety of frontline personnel is essential to stop the transmission."
The heads of these institutions have acknowledged that the response has made "progress," but have warned that more financial resources remain essential. "Late funding costs lives. Fragmented funding leaves gaps. Ebola takes advantage of both," they have stated.
In this sense, they have explained that "on the ground, at the WHO and the CDC Africa we have established a close integration between health and humanitarian aid organizations that collaborate with the Government," before emphasizing that "donors must support and strengthen that integration, instead of backing isolated and uncoordinated efforts."
Latest balance from Congolese authorities
The latest count released by the authorities of the DRC raises the confirmed cases of Ebola to 5,656 since the outbreak was declared, with 2,715 deaths, which represents a fatality rate of 48%. In addition, 792 people remain hospitalized and 1,245 patients have managed to overcome the disease.
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has detailed in its daily report that in the last 24 hours, 72 new infections and 18 deaths have been detected, while 30 patients have been discharged. The agency has also emphasized that the province of Ituri continues to be the main hub of the outbreak, concentrating 83.4% of the reported cases.
The outbreak surpassed last week's record from 2018 to 2020 and has thus become the deadliest in the country. Projections indicate that it could even exceed the West Africa outbreak of 2014-2016, which left 28,616 infections and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to WHO data.
The accumulated figures since the beginning of the current emergency place this outbreak as the fastest spreading on record: in the 2014-2016 crisis, it took five months to reach the threshold of 1,000 deaths, while this time more than 2,000 have been counted in less than three months, illustrating the severity of the situation.
The DRC, which in December 2025 declared another outbreak in the Kasai region concluded, is considered the country with the most global experience in managing Ebola. Since the virus was identified in 1976 in a double outbreak centered in the Congolese locality of Yambuku, on the banks of the Ebola River, the country has faced more than a dozen emergencies related to this disease.