More than 80% of new Ebola cases in DR Congo now arise outside known contact chains, and WHO calls it the third-largest outbreak on record at 2,344 cases and 930 deaths. Nine of twelve health posts have closed in one Djugu health area. Geneva deferred the pandemic treaty's pathogen-sharing annex a fourth time, and Cambodia produced four of the world's seven new H5N1 cases since February.
A response that cannot trace 80% of its new cases is counting an epidemic, not containing one.
WHO told a 20 July briefing that more than 80% of new Bundibugyo cases in DR Congo arise outside any known contact chain. Tedros ranked the outbreak third-largest on record.
QatarWHO said on 20 July that more than 80% of new Ebola cases in DR Congo now dodge contact tracing entirely. Tedros called it the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record.
If contact tracing were working, more new cases would trace back to known contacts, not fewer. WHO says the reverse is true: over 80% trace to nobody at all.
IGWG7 closed in Geneva on 17 July with no agreed text on pathogen access. The record from the room names a split WHO's own release does not: federated labs against hybrid centralisation.
SwitzerlandTalks on the WHO's pathogen-sharing annex closed in Geneva on 17 July with no agreed text. It was the fourth deferral since the Pandemic Agreement was adopted in May 2025.
Africa Group states want distributed national labs with strict access rules; the EU wants centralised infrastructure with more flexible terms. Neither side moved.
Radio Okapi reported on 15 July that nine of the twelve health posts in Djugu Territory's Heritage health area had closed, overwhelmed by patients. Customary chiefs raised the alarm, not the health ministry.
Congo - KinshasaNine of twelve health posts in Djugu's Heritage health area shut down by 15 July, Radio Okapi reported. Ebola patient numbers had overwhelmed them in eastern DR Congo.
A local sector chief blamed the closures for more than a hundred deaths. That figure comes from his own account, not from verified surveillance data.
Uganda sent home its final confirmed Ebola patient from Mulago hospital on 16 July, closing a national outbreak at 20 cases and 2 deaths and starting a 42-day clock.
Uganda discharged its last confirmed Ebola patient from Mulago Hospital in Kampala on 16 July. Two negative tests cleared the case, closing out a cluster of 20 cases and 2 deaths.
The clock now runs 42 days, double the virus's incubation period. Uganda can declare the outbreak officially over only if no new case appears.
Rwampara treatment centre staff left patients in their beds and burned tyres at the gate from 13 July. Five days later Ituri officials promised to digitise the payroll.
Congo - Kinshasa×2Staff at the Rwampara Ebola Treatment Centre in Bunia abandoned an isolation ward from 13 July. They burned tyres at the entrance, striking over unpaid salaries and bonuses.
Five days later officials pledged to validate WHO is owed pay and digitise the system. That pledge admits the current process cannot even confirm WHO is unpaid.
Jean Kaseya said WHO puts real Bundibugyo infections at two to four times the confirmed count, and gave the treatment trial its first timeline: about 60 patients enrolled, readout around September.
SenegalJean Kaseya, WHO heads Africa's continental health agency, said in mid-July that true Bundibugyo infections likely run two to four times the confirmed count. He also gave the Ebola treatment trial its first timeline.
About 60 patients are enrolled across three experimental drug arms, with a readout expected around September or October, the trial's first public schedule.
Global confirmed human H5N1 cases rose by seven between February and July, on ECDC's count. Cambodia supplied four of them, and the American dairy epidemic supplied none.
Global confirmed human H5N1 cases rose by just seven between 16 February and 17 July, Europe's disease agency recorded. Cambodia was responsible for four of them, most recently a baby girl in Phnom Penh.
The US count has not moved from 71 since early March. Its dairy-herd outbreak continues regardless, a reminder that surveillance finds what it is looking for.
The UK will decide within twelve months whether to make screening of synthetic DNA orders a legal duty rather than a voluntary one, its biological security report said on 14 July.
The UK's biosecurity strategy report, published 14 July, committed to deciding within 12 months whether screening custom gene-synthesis orders should become a legal requirement. British suppliers currently run those checks by choice, not by law.
It backs the move with 1.83 billion pounds for new biosecurity centres, arriving the same month the US Senate weighs its own mandatory-screening bill.
EU and EEA countries reported 129 clade I mpox cases in June, the first month since ECDC began its dedicated bulletin in which the count held level instead of climbing.
Europe's clade I mpox count held at 129 confirmed cases across nine European countries in June, health officials reported. That count had climbed every month before this one.
One flat month does not confirm a turning point; the figure could still be revised upward as delayed laboratory results are added.
Rwampara's 13-18 July strike-and-climbdown is the template for the next tip: a third round of unpaid hazard pay before Ituri's pledged payment-digitisation system is running would trigger another walkout and push isolation coverage below the 31% recorded on 18 July. In Geneva, IGWG8 on 14-18 September is the named decision point; escalation there means Algeria's federated model or the EU's hybrid model giving ground, with neither side having moved since 17 July.
