Battling Ebola Outbreaks

Fighting the Latest Outbreak of Ebola

In response to the latest outbreak of Ebola, our teams are supporting national authorities and partners throughout the region in their response. Drawing on our extensive experience, we are focusing on interventions critical to breaking transmission chains, including:

• establishing screening and referral units (SRUs) to rapidly identify suspected cases, triage patients safely and minimize transmission in health facilities and communities;
• operating Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) to provide isolation, clinical care and supportive treatment for confirmed cases;
• supporting infection prevention and control (IPC) measures, including training frontline health workers in how to treat this highly contagious disease and ensuring access to personal protective equipment (PPE), clean water and modern hygiene infrastructure; and
• strengthening community outreach and surveillance systems to educate affected communities, facilitate early referral and to build trust in affected communities.

Given the challenges in accessing remote and conflict-affected areas, and the potential for this dangerous disease to spread even further if not contained quickly, a timely and coordinated response will be essential to contain the outbreak and protect vulnerable populations.

We are closely coordinating with public health authorities and international partners in the DRC and surrounding countries, and will continue to adapt our response as the situation evolves. Your support is critical to enabling rapid deployment and sustained operations in these high-risk settings.

Our History of Fighting Ebola in the DRC

Since 2018, the DRC has frequently suffered from outbreaks of Ebola virus disease, a hemorrhagic fever with an alarmingly high mortality rate. Given our experience helping to lead the response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, International Medical Corps has been a key player in responding to these outbreaks.

We were called on in April 2018 to help the DRC fight an outbreak in Équateur province, in the country’s west. When that outbreak, the country’s ninth, was declared over in July of that year, a resurgence was close behind. On August 1, 2018, a new outbreak was declared in the country’s eastern provinces that would grow to become the second-largest Ebola outbreak ever, exceeded in size only by the 2014 outbreak in West Africa. After almost two years, thanks to the persistence and skill of our staff and other healthcare workers in the region, the end of the outbreak in this region was officially declared over on June 25, 2020. When the 10th outbreak in the east was officially declared over, 3,470 cases had been reported (including 3,324 confirmed and 153 probable cases), with 2,287 deaths and 1,171 survivors, according to DRC Ministry of Health data.

Celebration was muted, however: at the beginning of June of that year, the government announced a new outbreak—the country’s 11th—back in in Équateur province. As with other outbreaks, International Medical Corps deployed a rapid response team to support response efforts by the DRC Ministry of Health and the WHO, and ran Ebola Treatment Centers (ETCs) in the region. We also helped with treatment, IPC, screening, training and capacity-building. After this outbreak was officially declared over on November 18, 2020, we continued supporting regional health authorities during a 90-day period of heightened surveillance.

In the beginning of February 2021, another resurgence of the deadly disease occurred. Luckily, we were able to draw on previous work to battle this outbreak, the country’s 12th. As part of our efforts to expand local response capacity in the region, we built, opened and operated an ETC in Makeke (which we transitioned to a hospital for the community); operated Ebola Transit Centers in Beni and Mambassa; and operated an ETC in Mangina, the initial epicenter of the outbreak. In addition to providing treatment, vaccination and contact tracing during this last outbreak—officially declared over on May 3, 2021—International Medical Corps constructed nearly 100 screening-and-referral units throughout the region.

The country’s 13th outbreak, which emerged in North Kivu in early October 2021, was officially declared over in mid-December of that year. International Medical Corps provided case management services, training, and supplies and equipment to healthcare providers in the region, working closely with the Ministry of Health, local health officials and the international community. When several smaller outbreaks followed, we were able to help to contain them quickly.

In September 2025, an outbreak was declared in remote Kasai province. We rapidly deployed a response team to help with this outbreak by providing critical training and supplies to local health staff, coordinating closely with government efforts. Thanks to this quick response, the government was able to declare this outbreak—the country’s 16th—over by December of that year.