WHO Says Ebola Outbreak Is ‘Outpacing’ Response as Violence Disrupts Containment Efforts

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the current Ebola outbreak in Central Africa is spreading faster than health responders can contain it, warning that delays in identifying cases have left authorities “playing catch-up”.

Speaking Monday, Tedros said there have already been 220 suspected deaths linked to the outbreak and more than 900 suspected cases identified as surveillance efforts expand across the region.

“We are urgently scaling up operations, ‌but at the moment the epidemic is outpacing us,” he said, urging countries bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo to take immediate preventive action.

The outbreak is centered in northeastern DRC, particularly in Ituri province, but infections have now spread into neighboring provinces and crossed the border into Uganda.

Ugandan authorities confirmed two additional Ebola cases on Monday, bringing the country’s total number of infections to seven. According to the Ministry of Health, both new cases involve Ugandan healthcare workers employed at a private medical facility in the capital, Kampala.

The outbreak involves the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which no approved vaccine or treatment currently exists. Last week, the WHO formally declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids and can trigger severe bleeding, organ failure and death. But alongside the medical challenge, authorities are now confronting another major obstacle: growing public fear, distrust and violence targeting treatment facilities.

On Sunday evening, armed young men stormed Mongbwalu General Hospital in eastern DRC, where Ebola patients were being treated. Medical staff reportedly scrambled to evacuate patients as gunfire erupted nearby.

Hospital director Richard Lokudu told the Associated Press that the attackers demanded the release of the bodies of two relatives.

“Mongbwalu General Hospital is on general alert,” Lokudu said during the incident.

The attack followed another episode just one day earlier, when residents in Mongbwalu set fire to a treatment tent operated by Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF. During that chaos, 18 people suspected of having Ebola fled the facility and remained unaccounted for afterward.

Another treatment center in the town of Rwampara was burned down last Thursday after relatives were prevented from retrieving the body of a man believed to have died from Ebola.

The repeated confrontations highlight one of the most difficult dynamics in Ebola outbreaks: burial protocols and quarantine restrictions often collide with local customs, grief and distrust of authorities. Congolese officials have required that burials of suspected Ebola victims be handled by trained response teams in order to reduce transmission risks, but those measures have triggered anger in several communities.

Last Friday, the Congolese government imposed new emergency restrictions in northeastern parts of the country, banning funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.