A vaccination campaign against the Ebola outbreak began on Thursday, August 27, 2026 in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo, one of the six provinces affected by the outbreak in the northeast of the country.
Healthcare workers, who are particularly exposed, are vaccinated as a priority. This campaign comes as the outbreak continues to wreak havoc, with 5,794 confirmed cases, including 2,786 deaths and 1,293 recoveries.
More than 50,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine have already been received by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), out of 70,000 approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). The vaccine, developed against the Ebola Zaire strain, is used exceptionally within the framework of a compassionate use program. In other words, it is offered even though it has not yet been specifically evaluated against the Bundibugyo strain, responsible for the current outbreak.
The campaign is precisely designed to collect data to measure its effectiveness. The program is set to cover fourteen health zones in the Tshopo, Bas-Uele, and Haut-Uele regions. In Kisangani, Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba has urged healthcare workers to get vaccinated. Seventeen positive cases have been recorded in the Tshopo since the start of the outbreak.
Two other vaccines in development
In parallel, the British University of Oxford and the American Moderna are each developing a vaccine specifically targeted at the Bundibugyo strain. Their research is still in the early stages: it involves verifying that the candidate vaccines are well tolerated and that they trigger an immune response.
Beyond their effectiveness, the challenge will also be to ensure that these vaccines are accepted by the population.
