Modeled Scenario Projections for the Ebola Disease Outbreak Caused by Bundibugyo Virus, 2026

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), Vol. 75, No. 22, June 11, 2026: Modeled Scenario Projections for the Ebola Disease Outbreak Caused by Bundibugyo Virus, 2026
• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Personal Author:
  Mooring, Eric Q. ; Koval, William T. ; Routledge, Isobel ; Holmdahl, Inga ; Hudson, Kate ; España, Guido ; Kahn, Rebecca ; Bruce, Beau B.
• Description:
  On May 15, 2026, the Ministries of Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda declared outbreaks of Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD), a type of Ebola disease. In response to reports of high numbers of suspected cases and deaths in these outbreaks, CDC simulated scenario projections to understand possible future morbidity and mortality. A branching process model with the capacity to model transmission-reducing nonpharmaceutical interventions was calibrated to three puta¬tive cumulative death counts and projected for four possible intervention scenarios ranging from poor (20%) to extremely high (95%) levels of isolation and treatment of symptomatic persons. The analysis suggested a plausible spillover event (i.e., the transmission of a virus from its natural animal reservoir to humans) in mid to late February 2026. With poor isolation levels of patients with BVD (20%) and no other interventions, the likelihood of an outbreak that exceeds 20,000 cases within 3 months is 65%. If, however a high proportion of patients were to enter isolation (70%), only a one in 20 chance is projected for an outbreak with ≥10,000 cases within 3 months. These results underscore the importance of strong public health interventions, because the current outbreak is already the largest known BVD outbreak and has the potential to quickly become one of the largest Ebola disease outbreaks ever recorded.
• Subjects:
  Animals Disease Outbreaks Disease Outbreaks / Prevention & Control Disease Outbreaks / Statistics & Numerical Data Ebolavirus Ebolavirus / Isolation & Purification Epidemiological Models Forecasting Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Epidemiology Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Prevention & Control Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Transmission Humans Zoonoses

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• Keywords:
  Ebola
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• DOI:
  http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7522e1
• ISSN:
  1545-861X (online) ; 0149-2195 (print)
• Publisher:
  Office of Science, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Pubmed ID:
  42275271
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC13257927
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Democratic Republic of the Congo ; Uganda ; United States
• Rights:
  Public Domain
• CIO:
  Office of Science (OS)
• Topic:
  Diseases & Conditions ; Global Health
• Location:
  Africa
• Pages in Document:
  5 pdf pages
• Volume:
  75
• Issue:
  22
• Citation:
  Suggested citation for this article: Mooring EQ, Koval WT, Routledge I, et al. Modeled Scenario Projections for the Ebola Disease Outbreak Caused by Bundibugyo Virus, 2026. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2026;75:285–289. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7522e1
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:bdaf38b0c5f18d147369a7dfa74ebb2ba65993e2a18d4e118b872c47ee772bffb3db7610a8795f187a788bb059b6cabb175a1e4a1dfaa3e950aa10ed90f9c3b6
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/257166/cdc_257166_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 116.48 KB ]