The World Health Organization declared a "public health emergency of international concern" surrounding a deadly Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, Reuters reported on May 17. The outbreak's epicenter is in Congo's northeastern Ituri province, where 80 deaths were reported as of May 15, with at least one case in both Goma and Kinshasa, and two cases confirmed in Kampala, Uganda's capital.

The current Ebola outbreak is the 17th in Congo since 1976, but all except one of the previous 16 outbreaks were caused by the Ebola-Zaire strain, for which vaccines already exist. The last Ebola outbreak in Ituri took place between July 2018 and December 2019 and resulted in 3,262 cases and 2,232 deaths. The WHO said the absence of Bundibugyo-specific therapeutics or vaccines, as well as the high positive rates among initial samples, made the ongoing outbreak "extraordinary" and suggested a potentially "much larger" outbreak than currently detected.