WHO Declares Uganda’s Ebola Outbreak Over

The World Health Organization has confirmed that Uganda’s outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola is officially over, even as the virus continues to spread rapidly across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A WHO official told a briefing on Wednesday that Uganda’s all-clear follows the government’s own declaration on July 28 that it was free of the disease, which had infected 20 people and claimed two lives. The WHO says it kept monitoring the situation until this week to make sure no chains of transmission had slipped through unnoticed.

The picture in Congo, however, remains far more troubling. Dr. Marie Roseline Belizaire, the WHO’s director of emergency preparedness for the African region, told a regional meeting that cases there keep climbing despite some headway being made. The outbreak has become the second-deadliest in the disease’s history, with Congolese authorities reporting more than 2,700 deaths and over 5,600 cases as of Tuesday — figures that continue to outpace containment efforts on the ground.

Belizaire said transmission is still very active, though the rate of spread has at least slowed. She pointed to gains in contact tracing and testing, along with reassuring lab findings showing no signs so far that the Bundibugyo virus has mutated despite its rapid spread.

Still, she warned of an urgent $30 million funding shortfall needed to keep medical supplies and protective equipment flowing to the hardest-hit parts of Congo, cautioning that without immediate investment, the progress made so far risks stalling out.