DRC confirms eighth Ebola province as Kenya reports its eighth case

Outbreak totals

Congolese authorities said on Monday, 19 October 2026, that Ebola has reached an eighth province, North Ubangi, which borders the Central African Republic. The National Public Health Institute (INSP) reported 9,455 cases and 4,561 deaths to date, a case fatality rate of 48.2%. Of those infected, 2,530 people have been discharged and 925 are admitted or in isolation, while 80% of contacts are being followed. Earlier reports on Sunday, 18 October, put the count at at least 9,400 cases and more than 4,500 deaths.

Spread along the border

The health ministry reported two cases in North Ubangi, one of them fatal, both in men of about 20 years old who lived in the Wapinda health zone. The province sits between Sud-Ubangi and Bas-Uele, the two provinces the disease had previously reached along the border with the Central African Republic, where no case has been confirmed. Armed violence there has forced thousands of people to flee into border communities, and poor roads and limited communication make access difficult. Ituri province in eastern DRC remains the epicentre, accounting for almost three quarters of confirmed cases according to the latest government data, with 66 health zones affected since the outbreak began.

Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the World Health Organization's regional director for Africa, told AP that Ebola hotspots are generally decreasing while the disease is spreading geographically. He said one of the biggest challenges has been persuading sick people to seek medical care, and that some deaths occur in the community, outside health centres.

Kenya's eighth case

Kenya's Director-General for Health, Patrick Amoth, said 38 people were tested on Sunday, 18 October, and one of them was positive. The patient, a man who cared for patients at the Nairobi Hospital, developed fever, headache and muscle pain on Saturday, 17 October, was quarantined and then tested positive. Amoth described him to Citizen TV in these words:

He is a 49-year-old man who is not a healthcare worker. He developed fever, headache and muscle pain.

The ministry had reported four new cases on Saturday: three health workers who treated Kenya's first patient and a fourth person related to that patient. The first patient, a man who travelled from the DRC to Nairobi, died at a Nairobi hospital on 5 October. The outbreak strain is Bundibugyo, for which there is no vaccine or approved treatment.

US quarantine centre under pressure

The Guardian reports that the United States built a quarantine centre at Kenya's Laikipia air base, where Americans returning from the DRC would be required to quarantine. Local opponents and protests have fuelled distrust of the Kenyan government, and a Kenyan court ordered a halt to the centre. Allan Maleche, executive director of the Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network on HIV and Aids (Kelin), said the litigation will be decided in November. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the pandemic center at Brown University's school of public health, questioned the plan:

American taxpayers built these units for precisely this purpose, and it's mind-boggling to me that we're going to leave them empty.

Response measures

Authorities in North Kivu province, according to the state news agency ACP, are introducing a one-week ban from Monday on people entering the province from Ituri. Other measures include limits on passenger numbers in cars and on motorbikes and the suspension of large public gatherings. Médecins Sans Frontières runs most treatment centres in Butembo, where staff are under growing pressure. Stephanie Hoffmann of MSF warned that aid is too thin in the area:

If more help doesn't arrive, I can't see an end to this epidemic.

Some patients wait in hospital wards with other patients for a bed to free up, which risks further spread. Aid workers are also countering a rumour, which circulates among residents, that Ebola is being injected into people at treatment centres.