On 17 May 2026, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern; the gravest alert it can issue short of a full pandemic. The virus responsible is identified as the Bundibugyo strain. Currently, there is no approved vaccine for it.
As of May 16, eight laboratory-confirmed cases and 246 suspected cases had been reported in Ituri Province, DRC. Eighty people are suspected dead. Four of them were healthcare workers. Two confirmed cases have already crossed into Kampala, Uganda — both individuals who had travelled from DRC, making this, by the WHO’s own assessment, an outbreak that has already gone beyond its borders and is likely much larger than current numbers show.
Ebola is not airborne, but it spreads fast in places where hospitals are understaffed, where protective equipment is scarce, where women sit with the sick and wash the bodies of the dead, and where children are held close by the very people who cannot protect themselves. It spreads in the gaps; the same gaps that exist in communities across Nigeria and Kenya, in the informal clinics and the homes that double as treatment rooms when there is nowhere else to go.
Nigeria and Kenya are not DRC, but they are connected to it by air, by trade, by the web of movement that links African cities to each other. The WHO has advised all neighbouring and connected states to prepare and that preparation cannot wait.
At Helpster Charity, we do not wait. We are fully operational in Nigeria and Kenya right now, funding hospital treatment for children and pregnant women, running free medical outreaches in communities that have no other option, and putting donations directly into the hands of verified hospitals and patients that need them. Every case we fund is documented. Every shilling and naira is traceable. That is how we work — and it is how we will continue to work as this situation develops.
If you want to help, this is the moment. Visit helpstercharity.org, download the Helpster App, or write to us at team@helpstercharity.org. The children we serve cannot afford for the world to look away.