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The Democratic Republic of Congo is facing another Ebola outbreak nearly five decades after the virus was first identified near the Ebola River in 1976. 

The question raised by this latest emergency is the same one that has lingered after every previous outbreak: why, after decades of experience responding to Ebola, does the world still seem caught off guard each time it returns?

The current outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, has killed more than 100 people and infected more than 500 people in confirmed cases in the DRC, with additional suspected cases still under investigation. The outbreak has also been confirmed in Uganda, increasing concern about cross-border movement. Ituri Province, a vast region in north-eastern Congo bordering Uganda and home to millions of people, accounts for most of the cases.

The World Health Organization has said that contact tracing has improved but still remains below target. Health workers are operating in a region affected by insecurity, displacement and deep community mistrust. Attacks on response teams and treatment centres have complicated efforts to trace contacts and isolate cases. Some patients have also left treatment facilities, making containment more difficult.

Congo has brought Ebola outbreaks under control before, often under circumstances that would have overwhelmed many health systems. But experience alone does not amount to preparedness. That distinction remains at the heart of the problem.

The ghost of West Africa

The world saw the consequences of that gap between experience and preparedness during the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. What began in a remote part of Guinea became the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, killing more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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The virus spread rapidly through countries with fragile health systems, limited surveillance capacity and few treatment facilities. International assistance eventually arrived, but only after local systems had already been overwhelmed. Given the security challenges and weak health infrastructure in parts of eastern Congo, the concern that the latest outbreak could become harder to contain is difficult to dismiss.

What made the West African epidemic so devastating was how quickly it moved through already fragile systems. Surveillance was weak, treatment capacity was limited, and early-warning mechanisms were slow to detect what was happening on the ground. By the time the scale of the crisis was fully understood, containment had become far more difficult and the response far more expensive.

The lesson was clear. Surveillance systems, laboratories and frontline healthcare are cheaper to build before an outbreak than during one. That reality is well understood. But it rarely survives contact with budget decisions in quieter years.

A funding gap at the worst possible moment

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the WHO have announced a joint Ebola response plan seeking roughly 518 million dollars to strengthen outbreak response through November 2026. The plan is intended to support surveillance, laboratory testing, clinical care, coordination and community engagement across affected and at-risk countries.

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That scale of need says something important. Ebola preparedness is still being treated too often as an emergency expense rather than as permanent public health infrastructure. Money arrives when the virus is already spreading. Attention rises when the numbers become impossible to ignore. Then, when the outbreak is brought under control, the pressure fades.

This matters in the middle of an active outbreak. Congo is dealing with a species of Ebola virus for which there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment. Ituri and nearby areas are also shaped by insecurity, displacement and cross-border movement. Uganda has already reported cases linked to the same outbreak, and neighbouring countries remain on alert.

Health systems across much of Africa remain underfunded, and outbreaks routinely stretch them beyond capacity. The international response that follows is almost always more expensive than what early investment would have required. Despite repeated promises after earlier crises, too little in that cycle has changed.

Preparedness cannot be built overnight

The people responding to Ebola in eastern Congo are not inexperienced. Congo's doctors, nurses and outbreak teams have dealt with repeated epidemics over the years, often in difficult conditions marked by insecurity and mistrust. But each new episode still arrives in a system that is thinly resourced and unevenly prepared.

Much of what determines how an outbreak unfolds is set long before the first case is confirmed. Laboratories must be functioning when samples arrive. Surveillance systems must be active when unusual clusters begin to appear. Cross-border coordination works best when it has already been agreed and tested, rather than negotiated under pressure.

Congo may yet bring this outbreak under control. It has done so before. But that cannot be the world's comfort. It should be its warning. A system that survives each outbreak by improvising is not prepared. It is lucky – until it is not.

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Ebola DR Congo Health Africa Uganda WHO