The Brief

Congo Finally Got Ebola Vaccine Doses. They Were Licensed Against A Different Virus.

16,250 doses of Ervebo reached Kinshasa on Friday, the first of 70,000 pledged. The outbreak spreading across six provinces is Bundibugyo, identified in Uganda in 2007, and no vaccine has ever been licensed against it.
Aug 22, 2026 · Health

16,250 doses of Ervebo reached Kinshasa on Friday evening.1 They are the first of 70,000 pledged by the World Health Organization and its partners for an outbreak declared on 15 May, which has since become the deadliest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's history.1 4

Ervebo is the only licensed Ebola vaccine in the world. It was licensed in 2019, against Zaire ebolavirus.1 The outbreak in Congo is Bundibugyo, a separate species of the same family, first identified in the Bundibugyo district of western Uganda in 2007.3 7 Nothing has ever been licensed against it.

Why 20,000 of the doses are an experiment

Of the 70,000 pledged, 20,000 are earmarked for a late-stage clinical trial to find out whether Ervebo works against Bundibugyo at all. The other 50,000 go to frontline and health workers.1 The WHO says early animal data suggests it may offer some protection.1 That is the basis on which it is being deployed.

Staff prepare to disinfect the Rwampara treatment centre after the fire. Ituri, DR Congo, May 2026. Photograph: Moses Sawasawa / AP

How far it has spread

As of 12 August the WHO recorded 4,665 confirmed cases and 2,184 deaths across six provinces and 54 health zones: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uélé, Tshopo and Bas-Uélé.2 By 17 August the UN put the toll at 2,325 deaths from 4,945 confirmed cases, passing the 2,299 killed by the 2018 to 2020 Kivu outbreak, which ran for 23 months.4 By 21 August, Congolese authorities reported 5,290 cases and 2,516 deaths.5 The case fatality rate is around 46 percent.2 4

A burial team at a cemetery in Ituri, DR Congo, June 2026. Photograph: Moses Sawasawa / AP

The response keeps being burned down

In May a crowd at Rwampara, outside Bunia, disputed the burial of a local footballer suspected of dying from Ebola and set fire to the treatment tents.5 6 A body due to be buried that day was destroyed with them, and six patients were moved to hospital.5 The following night a tent run by Doctors Without Borders at Mongbwalu was burned, and 18 suspected Ebola patients left into the community.6

The Rwampara Ebola treatment centre alight during a burial dispute. Ituri, DR Congo, May 2026. Photograph: Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne / AP

Around 160 medical staff have been infected and 43 have died.5 Paying the people still working is a problem in itself. Julien Harneis, the UN's Ebola coordinator in Bunia, says the airport there is closed to commercial traffic and the banks have run out of cash, and that moving large sums by road from the capital is not feasible either.5

Mourners at an Ebola burial in Ituri, DR Congo, June 2026. Photograph: Moses Sawasawa / AP

What it comes down to

Bundibugyo has been known for nineteen years. In that time a vaccine was developed, tested and licensed against a different member of the same family, and none was licensed against this one. The doses that landed on Friday are the best answer available to an outbreak killing roughly one person an hour, and nobody yet knows whether they work.

Kahindo Mireille Pierrette with her 16-month-old baby and health workers, after being declared an Ebola survivor and discharged from the Rwampara treatment centre. Ituri, DR Congo, June 2026. Photograph: Moses Sawasawa / AP

Photographs

We do our best to source photographs that accurately reflect each story, but we are a small team. Some images are illustrative rather than photographs of the specific event described. Every source is listed above.

Citations

  1. More than 16,000 doses of Ervebo vaccine arrive in Ebola-hit DR Congo, Al Jazeera, 22 Aug 2026
  2. Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, WHO Disease Outbreak News DON615, 12 Aug 2026
  3. Newly Discovered Ebola Virus Associated with Hemorrhagic Fever Outbreak in Uganda, PLOS Pathogens, 2008
  4. Ebola outbreak becomes deadliest in DR Congo's history, UN News, 17 Aug 2026
  5. Congo: 160 Ebola cases among medical workers, dozens dead, Associated Press via The Spokesman-Review, 21 Aug 2026
  6. Eighteen suspected Ebola patients escape after treatment tent is set on fire for a second time in Congo, PBS NewsHour, May 2026
  7. Bundibugyo virus: what it is and what it is not, CEPI