The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is likely two to four times larger than the 1,963 cases and 719 deaths officially recorded, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. WHO emergencies director Chikwe Ihekweazu, speaking in Geneva after a visit to the epicentre in Ituri province, said the agency’s modelling indicates the epidemic’s true scale far surpasses confirmed figures, largely because many victims die in their communities without ever reaching a health facility. The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus for which no approved vaccine or treatment exists, has now spread to five Congolese provinces and crossed into Uganda, where 20 cases have been logged.

Response efforts are being squeezed by a severe funding shortfall and mounting labour unrest. The WHO has received only 40 percent of the $115 million it requested for the operation, while health workers at the Rwampara treatment centre in Ituri burned tyres and blocked access on Monday, protesting unpaid wages since the outbreak was declared in mid-May. They have given authorities a 48-hour ultimatum before launching a full strike. At least 112 healthcare workers have been infected and 35 have died. Viewed from Washington, the Trump administration has imposed Title 49 travel restrictions barring US citizens from boarding commercial flights to the United States unless they have spent 21 days outside the DRC, a move that complicates the movement of aid personnel.

On the scientific front, researchers at the University of Oxford are preparing to launch a Phase I clinical trial of a new vaccine candidate against the Bundibugyo strain, with the first doses to be administered to 50 healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom within weeks. Separately, a post-exposure prophylaxis trial using the antiviral obeldesivir is set to begin in the DRC, led by the national biomedical research institute, the French agency ANRS MIE and the NGO Alima. While these interventions remain in early testing, the immediate response has seen some operational gains: contact-tracing rates are approaching 80 percent, treatment capacity has surpassed 700 beds, and laboratory facilities have expanded from one to fourteen.

Despite those improvements, the epidemic continues to outpace containment measures. The spread into Tshopo province, home to the Congo River port city of Kisangani, has raised concern in regional capitals about potential transmission downstream toward Kinshasa. Community mistrust remains a persistent obstacle; Red Cross burial teams have been attacked by residents who deny the virus’s existence or accuse aid groups of profiteering. Dubai Humanitarian has dispatched a fourth airlift of supplies to Uganda, delivering water purification tablets, generators and cold-chain equipment, as international partners try to shore up a response that Ihekweazu described as a marathon requiring sustained effort. The next factual milestones are the expiry of the health workers’ strike ultimatum and the dosing of the first volunteers in the Oxford vaccine trial.