On Jun. 23, 2026, Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, Director, Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations at the World Health Organization (WHO), who returned last week from one month in the DRC, said that to date there are 1,048 confirmed cases reported, of which 267 deaths.  “This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa,” he said.  

During the current outbreak due to the Bundibugyo species of Ebola virus, declared on 15 May, it only took 37 days to reach 250 deaths, Dr Mahamud explained, while in comparison, it took 78 days to reach that number in the 2014 and 2016 West Africa outbreak, and 130 days in the 2018-2019 outbreak. 

The IOM official said that out of $55.8 million required to support cross-border coordination and surveillance across 11 countries over the next six months, a funding gap of some $35 million remains.