What to know about the Ebola outbreak blamed for scores of deaths in Congo

Africa’s top public health body has confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Ituri province, the 17th since the disease first emerged in the country in 1976.

A total of 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths in Congo have already been recorded in the new outbreak, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Friday.

In neighboring Uganda, an Ebola case has been confirmed in a man from Congo who died in a hospital in the capital, Kampala. Ugandan officials said the man was tested posthumously.

Here’s what to know about the health crisis:

The suspected Ebola cases have mainly been recorded in Ituri's Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones. Suspected cases have also been reported in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province.

So far, only four of the deaths reported are laboratory-confirmed cases, but the new outbreak was confirmed after many suspected cases.

Ituri is in a remote eastern part of Congo with poor road networks, and is more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa.

One major concern, the Africa CDC said, is the proximity of affected areas to Uganda and South Sudan. Bunia, Ituri's main city, is near the border with Uganda.

The agency said there's also risk of further spread due to intense population movement and attacks by armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in parts of Ituri province in the past year.

There are also gaps in contact tracing, the Africa CDC said, as local authorities race to find those who might have been exposed to the virus.

Africa CDC said results so far suggest a variant of illness other than the Ebola virus, also known as the Ebola Zaire strain. It said sequencing is ongoing to further characterize the strain, with results expected within the next 24 hours.

The Ebola Zaire strain was prominent in Congo’s past outbreaks, including the 2018 to 2020 outbreak in the eastern region that killed more than 1,000 people.

The World Health Organization says the Ebola disease is caused by a group of viruses, and that three of them are known to cause large outbreaks: Ebola virus, Sudan virus and Bundibugyo virus.

WHO said during Congo's Ebola outbreak last year that the country has a stockpile of treatments and some 2,000 doses of vaccine. However, the vaccine is for the Ebola virus, not the Sudan or Bundibugyo viruses.

Dr. Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health who has been involved in past Ebola outbreak responses in Congo, said treatments for viral infections like Ebola are often directed at symptoms and that efforts regarding vaccines would become clearer when the strain in the new outbreak is confirmed.

In Uganda, authorities said the case confirmed there was of the Bundibugyo virus, a strain that has been endemic to that country. However, health officials said the case was “imported” from Congo and that there had been no local cases detected.

Ugandan health officials said contacts linked to that case have been quarantined, including a high-risk contact who is a close relative of the deceased.

The Africa CDC convened an urgent high-level coordination meeting Friday with health authorities from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, together with key partners including U.N. agencies and other countries.

The meeting, the agency said, was set to focus on immediate response priorities, cross-border coordination, surveillance, safe and dignified burials and resource mobilization, among other areas.

Congo and health workers on the ground have a high level of experience from past outbreaks, in addition to existing infrastructure such as laboratories, Nsakala said. “Now, the expertise and equipment need to be delivered quickly,” he added.

Congo is Africa’s second-largest country by land area and often faces logistical challenges in responding to disease outbreaks due to bad roads and long distances.

During last year’s outbreak, which lasted three months, the WHO initially faced significant challenges in delivering vaccines, which took a week after the outbreak was confirmed.

Funding has also been problematic. During last year's outbreak, health officials were concerned about the impact of recent U.S. funding cuts.

The U.S. had supported the response to Congo’s past Ebola outbreaks, including in 2021 when the U.S. Agency for International Development provided up to $11.5 million to support efforts across Africa.

The Ebola virus is highly contagious and can be transmitted to people from wild animals. It then spreads in the human population through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and with surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing contaminated with these fluids.

The disease it causes is a rare but severe — and often fatal — illness in people. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.

The virus was first discovered in 1976, near the Ebola River in what is now Congo. The first outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests.

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Saleh Mwanamilongo in Bonn, Germany, contributed.

A health worker mops the floor at the Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

Dr Elizabeth Furaha, medical director of Karibuni wa Mama, speaks with a relative of a patient at Sofepadi Hospital in Bunia, Congo, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

Manza Pantience, a midwife at Karibuni wa Mama, supervises health workers who collect patients' samples for Ebola testing at Sofepadi Hospital in Bunia, Congo, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

A health worker collects meals for Ebola patients at the treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

Health workers take meals to Ebola patients at the treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks to the media following an emergency committee during a press conference at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

Health workers arrive at a treatment center for disinfection exercises in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

Medical staff carry an Ebola patient to a treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

People in protective masks wait in the corridor of a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

Aid workers set up an Ebola treatment center in Bunia, Congo, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

People offload a shipment of more than 15 tonnes of supplies donated by UNICEF as part of the response to the Ebola virus outbreak at Bunia National Airport in Bunia, Congo, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

Health workers chat at an Ebola treatment center in Bunia, Congo, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)

A general view of Bunia, where Ebola outbreaks have been confirmed in Ituri province, Congo, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo)

FILE - Health workers wearing protective suits tend to an Ebola victim kept in an isolation tent in Beni, Congo, July 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - Health workers dressed in protective gear begin their shift at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, Congo, July 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

FILE - A health worker sprays disinfectant on his colleague after working at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, eastern Congo, Sept 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro, File)

Police released video Friday of a mass shooting that killed three people at an Idaho In-N-Out Burger, and heaped praise on a bystander who engaged the gunman on a trail, slowing him down and possibly preventing more deaths as authorities were catching up.

The video revealed more details of a chaotic scene in Twin Falls last weekend. The gunman walked up to the drive-thru window four times and opened fire, killing an In-N-Out employee, police said.

A total of 10 people were shot — inside the restaurant, directly outside, on an adjacent busy road and at a nearby visitors center lot, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said.

Hicks said at a news conference that investigators still don’t have a motive for the shooting. The gunman, Chad Williams, 24, killed himself.

“What happened here was violent, frightening and deeply traumatic,” Hicks said.

It should have been a “normal Saturday afternoon,” he said. “Employees showing up for work. Visitors coming to see our beautiful city. Instead they were confronted with chaos, fear and now loss.”

As the shooting unfolded, employees from nearby stores fled to a walking trail. When the gunman headed to the trail, he came across two people, including one with his hands in the air talking to him, according to the video.

He distracted the gunman from possibly pursuing others on the trail. Williams subsequently killed himself as police closed in. His body was found near a canyon.

“To that young man, you are a hero,” Hicks said. “Your courage, your composure, your selflessness in that moment likely gave others the time they needed to escape harm. This community is grateful for you, and we will never forget what you did that day.”

Hicks also praised the work of an off-duty state trooper and a former police officer, A.J. James, who was wounded while confronting Williams.

James ran toward the sound of gunfire from the drive-thru window and was shot and wounded, while the off-duty officer inside the In-N-Out exchanged gunfire with Williams through the window and directed workers out of the building, Hicks said.

He acted “heroically and unbelievably” to try to slow down the shooter, the police chief said, declining to release the off-duty officer's name.

Braxton Steube said he was the person who encountered Williams on the trail after fleeing a Dick's Sporting Good store.

“I said, ‘I have a family.’ I said, ‘You don’t have to do this. I’ll tell you whatever you want. I’ll do anything,'” Steube told KMVT-TV. “He started to like tear up a bit, it seemed. And he said to me, ‘Just get away from me, man.’”

Steube said the gunman shot at him and missed.

The Twin Falls In-N-Out, 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast of Boise, the state capital, had opened in July as part of the chain’s expansion into Idaho.

Police identified those killed as Ashley Garibay, 23, of Stockton, California; Dale Schultz, 66, of Salt Lake City; and Christopher Claunch, 59, of Hagerman, Idaho.

Williams had briefly attended the College of Southern Idaho and previously lived in Arizona.

This image taken from video provided by the Twin Falls Police Department shows Chad Williams holding a gun and approaching a car in an In-N-Out drive-thru Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Twin Falls, Idaho (Twin Falls Police Department via AP)

A woman prays during a candlelight vigil Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in Twin Falls, Idaho, to honor the victims of a recent shooting at a local In-N-Out Burger. (AP Photo/Andrew Eakin)