Yes, the 2026 Ebola outbreak was identified in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by health officials in May 2026. The first known patient exhibited symptoms in late April, but the outbreak was not confirmed until May 15; investigations later pointed to the outbreak having started months earlier. The rare Bundibugyo strain was identified as causing the outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern regarding the outbreak on May 17. At that point, there were about 250 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths, and, according to WHO, various factors suggested “a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread.”
Days later, on May 20, WHO noted that the number of suspected cases had jumped to about 600, with 139 suspected deaths, and expected that the numbers would continue to rise. On May 25, WHO reported there were more than 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths, of which 101 cases and 10 deaths were confirmed. On June 3, WHO reported there were 344 confirmed cases and 60 deaths in the DRC, and noted that the number of suspected cases had dropped considerably, to 116, because diagnosticians had begun to work through the backlog of suspected cases, either confirming or ruling out Ebola.
The DRC government reported that as of June 15, there were 837 confirmed cases and 196 confirmed deaths from Ebola in the country; as of July 18, those numbers had risen to 2,344 cases, including 930 deaths. Government data dated July 22 showed a sharp increase in numbers—2,905 cases and 1,269 deaths—which the government attributed to a reconciliation of data. As of July 29, those numbers had risen to 3,532 cases, including 1,556 deaths, and the outbreak was now the largest recorded in the DRC—surpassing the country’s 2018–20 epidemic—and the second-largest recorded in the world (after the 2014–16 outbreak in western Africa). Numbers continued to rise, with government data showing 10,274 cases, including 4,992 deaths, as of October 28.