Mbandaka
Congo river port city; capital of Équateur province, DR Congo.
Mbandaka, hit by Ebola three times since 2018, lies outside the seven provinces affected by DR Congo's 2026 Bundibugyo outbreak, which in September reached Sud-Ubangi, a province carved from the old Équateur.
Last refreshed: 4 October 2026
Timeline for Mbandaka
Mentioned in: Ebola reaches Sud-Ubangi by river boat
Pandemics and BiosecurityBackground
Mbandaka sits near the new EDGE of DR Congo's 2026 Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak. WHO's bulletin of 25 September listed seven affected provinces, and Équateur was not among them. The virus did reach Sud-Ubangi, a province carved from the old Équateur, in September.
The city is the capital of Équateur province, on the east bank of the Congo river about 4 km north of the equator. Ebola has struck it three times. In May 2018 the virus reached Mbandaka from the countryside, and WHO warned of spread downriver towards Kinshasa and Brazzaville. That Zaire ebolavirus outbreak, fought with an experimental vaccine, was declared over in July 2018 without reaching either capital. An outbreak declared in the city's Wangata health zone on 1 June 2020 reached 130 cases and 55 deaths before it ended on 18 November 2020. A third, declared on 23 April 2022, killed all five of its cases in the Mbandaka and Wangata zones.
The 2018 response set two benchmarks. The National biomedical institute, INRB, confirmed the species in about seven days with a rapid assay deployed forward to Mbandaka, and USAID staff ran contact-tracing convoys out of the city.