Bundibugyo ebolavirus

By 20 July, WHO said more than 80% of new Bundibugyo cases in DR Congo were emerging outside any known contact chain, as the outbreak reached 2,344 confirmed cases and 930 deaths, a roughly 39.7% case-fatality ratio. Tedros called it the third-largest Ebola outbreak of any species on record, trailing only Zaire ebolavirus's two largest epidemics.

The untraced share matters because it means the outbreak is now spreading faster than responders can map it: a traced contact can be isolated before symptoms begin, but an untraceable case is found only once it is already infectious. That shift, not the raw case count, pushed WHO's language from containment towards acknowledging that transmission has outrun surveillance.

Health-worker infections in the Bundibugyo outbreak more than tripled between mid-June and 11 July, from 34 confirmed cases to 112, with 35 of those workers dead; Africa CDC formally appealed for better protective equipment and psychosocial support.

Two days earlier, front-line staff in Ituri Province had walked off the job or threatened to strike over unpaid hazard pay and delayed salaries, even as donors pledged hundreds of millions in outbreak funding. The workforce treating patients has become a second front in the epidemic, stripping case-finding and isolation capacity from a response that already cannot keep pace.