Five patients have recovered from a rare Ebola strain that has no approved treatments or vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization announced Sunday during a visit to Bunia, the eastern Congolese city at the centre of the outbreak. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed that four individuals were discharged from care on Sunday, following one patient who had been released two days earlier. Speaking at the inauguration of a new Ebola treatment centre in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, he said: “Of course, we’re still working on vaccines and treatments but that doesn’t mean that people cannot recover from Ebola.”
Recoveries offer rare hope
The recoveries mark the first documented cases of a confirmed Bundibugyo patient surviving during the current health crisis, the WHO reported on Friday. The Bundibugyo virus (BDBV) is a distinct species of Orthoebolavirus, separate from the more common Zaire ebolavirus that caused the devastating West African epidemic and previous outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unlike the Zaire strain, there are no licensed vaccines or specific treatments for Bundibugyo; the most promising candidate vaccines are still in development, with the WHO warning that clinical trial assessment could take seven to nine months. The Democratic Republic of Congo has now faced 17 Ebola outbreaks, and Tedros noted that the country’s experience — having ended every previous outbreak — gives him confidence. However, the WHO declared the current outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 16 May, just days after it was first alerted on 5 May.
Official figures from the WHO put the number of confirmed cases at 134 in the DRC and neighbouring Uganda as of 29 May, including 18 confirmed deaths — one of them in Uganda. Yet the health organisation has warned that the true number of infections could be three to four times higher than reported, due to limited testing capacity and underreporting. The outbreak has spread across several provinces: Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu in the DRC, as well as Kampala and Wakiso districts in Uganda.
Patient accounts reveal ordeal
Baraka Bulambulu, one of the survivors, described how community members feared contracting an unknown illness from him and his fellow patients, keeping their distance while delivering food and medicine. He told The Associated Press that the uncertainty was overwhelming — he and others believed they might die without knowing what disease they had, until testing eventually confirmed Ebola. “Being able to come out of this alive is an immense source of happiness,” he said. “Many people who were in the same situation died.”
Ezo Étienne, a nurse, recounted how his symptoms began during ward rounds when he suddenly felt dizzy. His condition rapidly deteriorated into vomiting, intense itching, severe diarrhoea and extreme weakness. He was tested seven times before the Bundibugyo virus was confirmed. His treatment consisted entirely of managing symptoms — medications to control vomiting, fluids to prevent dehydration and pain relievers. “That was all they could provide,” he said. He urged both the public and healthcare workers not to dismiss early symptoms such as vomiting and headaches, warning that misinformation leads many people to believe they have been poisoned rather than seeking hospital care. The Bundibugyo virus typically causes non-specific early signs — fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat — that can progress to gastrointestinal symptoms, organ dysfunction and, in some cases, haemorrhaging. The virus spreads through direct contact with the blood, secretions or bodily fluids of infected individuals; people are not infectious until symptoms appear.
Healthcare workers confront violence and mistrust
The recovery of five patients offers a glimmer of hope, but the response on the ground remains severely hampered by violence, community distrust and a lack of resources. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Saturday that the virus continues to spread faster than the response, despite better-organised health facilities and new aid arrivals. MSF called for the immediate expansion of testing, faster deployment of aid workers and sustained access for medical supplies. Trish Newport, MSF’s emergency program manager, said: “The number of cases and deaths we are seeing in such a short timeframe, combined with the spread across several health zones and now across the border, is extremely concerning.”
Health workers face direct danger. Anger among residents over stringent medical protocols for handling victims’ bodies — protocols that clash with local burial rites — has led to at least three attacks against health centres. Misinformation, including the belief that patients have been poisoned rather than infected, compounds the problem. Tedros stressed the importance of involving the community in the outbreak response during the opening of the new treatment centre on Sunday. “If you come to health facilities when you have symptoms, you can get the support and recover, so the key is to come forward as early as possible and to get the necessary support,” he said. “We can stop this Ebola and anyone who has it can also recover. But the rule … is this thing is everybody’s business and every citizen should be involved.”
The outbreak zone is also plagued by chronic insecurity. Attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias have hindered access for medical teams and disrupted communities. The Congolese army and civil society groups said ADF fighters killed seven people on Saturday in Beni, North Kivu province, an area also affected by the outbreak. The illness has been reported in both North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls key cities including Goma and Bukavu. Insecurity leads to workforce shortages, limited access to health facilities and difficulties in obtaining supplies. Uganda and Rwanda have implemented border closures in an attempt to prevent further cross-border transmission.
Despite the obstacles, aid is beginning to arrive. The European Union has delivered medical aid to Ituri, the United States has announced $80 million in additional assistance — bringing its total commitment to more than $112 million — and UNICEF has allocated emergency funds for response activities. The WHO has convened expert groups to assess potential treatments and vaccines. Three candidate therapeutics — monoclonal antibodies MBP134 and maftivimab, and the antiviral remdesivir — have been recommended for evaluation in clinical trials, with combination therapy also proposed. For post-exposure prophylaxis, the oral antiviral obeldesivir is a priority candidate, though its effectiveness depends on robust contact tracing, which is operationally challenging in the current security environment.
Pierre Akilimali, incident manager at the DRC’s National Institute of Public Health, offered a message of reassurance during Sunday’s inauguration. “The final message we would like to share with the Ituri community is that there is hope. With the symptomatic treatment that we are currently providing, we are seeing patients recover,” he said. Davin Ambitapio, another doctor at the treatment centre, added: “We truly have hope. The virus here is not as complicated as those we have dealt with in the past, and with the support of all our partners, we believe we will be able to bring this outbreak under control as quickly as possible.”
