Nile Basin

The Nile Basin is all the land that drains into the Nile: about 2.93 million km², roughly 10% of Africa. Eleven countries lie wholly or partly within it: Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

It is now a MERS watch zone. A joint WHO, FAO and WOAH assessment published on 7 August 2026 found fragments of clade B MERS coronavirus in Nile Basin camels, where clade C had predominated. The agencies rated spillover risk to exposed people high, at moderate confidence, should clade B establish itself.

The sequences were incomplete, so whole-genome confirmation is the next decision point. The basin's camel herds, and the people WHO work with them, are where any spillover would begin.