Congo Ebola Outbreak Hits 60 Health Zones as Vaccination Drive Begins With a Vaccine Built for a Different Strain

Since Congo's Ebola outbreak was declared in mid-May, it has grown from three health zones to 60, according to the latest government figures published Friday, August 28, 2026, and reported by the Associated Press. The two newest zones, Biena and Manguredjipa in North Kivu province, bring the confirmed case count to 5,794, including 2,786 deaths, per Congo's Ministry of Health.

That's a case fatality rate of about 48% overall, though the AP reports the rate is running even higher in the two newest zones, which officials attribute to delayed response efforts.

Congo's government believes the outbreak was actually spreading since February, three months before it was formally declared. Most cases and deaths are now occurring outside the network of monitored contacts, meaning health workers are chasing a virus that has already outrun their tracing systems.

A Vaccine for the Wrong Strain

On Thursday, August 27, Health Minister Roger Kamba launched Congo's vaccination campaign in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo province, according to the AP, PBS, The Independent, Al Jazeera and Euronews. Health workers and other frontline responders are first in line.

"We have decided to use the Ervebo vaccine to protect first those who are on the front line, therefore our health care providers, but also people who have been in contact with patients," Kamba said.

Every outlet in this story flagged a central complication: Ervebo is approved for the Zaire strain of Ebola. This outbreak is being driven by the Bundibugyo strain, a rarer variant with no approved vaccine or treatment anywhere in the world.

Health authorities are using Ervebo under a compassionate-use program, which allows an unapproved application of an existing medical product during a serious disease emergency. Officials say the two strains are related closely enough that Ervebo might offer some protection, but as Al Jazeera and Euronews both note, whether it actually works against Bundibugyo is still unknown.

Placide Mbala Kingebeni, Africa CDC's director for research, clinical trials and innovation, said data will be collected during the rollout to measure the vaccine's real-world performance.

More than 50,000 of the 70,000 Ervebo doses the WHO approved for Congo last week have arrived, according to Congo's state news agency. Of those, 50,000 are earmarked for frontline and health workers. The remaining 20,000 will go into a formal clinical trial specifically testing whether Ervebo protects against Bundibugyo Ebola.

The Numbers Are Moving Faster Than the Response

The outbreak's growth has been staggering by any historical measure. Epoch Times reported that Congo's National Institute of Public Health recorded 4,053 confirmed cases and 1,850 deaths as of August 5. Three weeks later, the case count has climbed by more than 1,700 and deaths have grown by nearly 1,000.

Carl Skau, acting head of the U.N. World Food Programme, told Reuters in July that it is "the fastest-spreading Ebola epidemic that we have ever seen." WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on August 7 that the outbreak "is outpacing our response, making it imperative that we rapidly scale up every aspect of our efforts to contain it."

The AP reports the outbreak is spreading under conditions that would strain any health system: insecurity, mass displacement, a health workers' strike, and heavy population movement across six provinces, including Ituri, which has also been battered by rebel violence. Public gatherings have been restricted, and some airports have closed, disrupting daily life across the affected region.

The WHO has said the outbreak remains out of control and is on track to surpass the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and stands as the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record.

Open Questions

The central question is whether Ervebo, a vaccine engineered against a different Ebola strain, will actually protect people against Bundibugyo. Nobody currently knows. That's why the 20,000-dose clinical trial exists alongside the frontline vaccination push.

A legitimate concern is that health workers are being asked to trust a vaccine whose efficacy against this specific strain hasn't been established. That's a real gap. Regulators aren't hiding this. Every source in this story, including the AP and Euronews, states plainly that the science is still being tested in real time.

Congo's government has also acknowledged its own containment gaps. Advocacy groups say more needs to be done to build community trust, according to the AP, even as officials install additional health and sanitary equipment at some locations.

The next marker to watch is whether the Bundibugyo-specific trial produces efficacy data, and whether case growth slows now that vaccination has actually started, three-plus months after the outbreak was first declared.