Africa has secured about $498.8 million in pledges and commitments to bolster response efforts against the ongoing Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak across affected and high-risk countries, as the death toll has risen to 220.

This was disclosed on Monday, May 26, 2026, by Jean Kaseya, Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in a post shared on X.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed that fatalities linked to the outbreak have reached 220, warning that “at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us.”

Kaseya said Africa is united in its response to the ongoing Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak, as governments and development partners coordinate efforts to mobilise the funding required to strengthen response operations across affected regions of the continent.

He described the commitments as a strong show of African solidarity, leadership, and collective responsibility in safeguarding the continent’s health security.

Kaseya further stressed that as the outbreak continues to evolve in a complex environment, trust, coordination, and rapid response remain essential to stopping transmission and saving lives.

Meanwhile, Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said last week in a post on X that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has allocated up to $60 million from its emergency response fund to support efforts to contain the ongoing Ebola outbreak linked to the rare Bundibugyo virus strain in Central Africa.

The emergency allocation came five days after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, warning that there is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for the Bundibugyo strain circulating in parts of Central Africa.

As part of broader international response efforts, major contributions announced during the ministerial meeting included $160 million from the World Bank for the Congo, $82 million from the United States, and about $57 million from European partners.

What you should know:
The outbreak continues to spread across parts of Central Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

In the DRC, authorities have recorded a total of 906 suspected cases, 105 confirmed cases, 223 suspected deaths, and 10 confirmed deaths linked to the outbreak.

Uganda has so far reported seven confirmed cases and one confirmed death, with health officials noting that five of the cases have clear epidemiological links to the first two confirmed infections.

The Bundibugyo strain driving the outbreak currently has no approved vaccine or specific treatment.

Bundibugyo ebolavirus is considered one of the rarest Ebola species known to infect humans and has only been linked to two previous outbreaks, first in Uganda in 2007 and later in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012.