Health Worker Shortage Deepens as Ebola Outbreak Spreads Across DR Congo

By Angel No Lie | KPD Online | 26 September 2026

The Democratic Republic of Congo is facing a growing shortage of trained health workers as an Ebola outbreak continues to spread across the country, creating pressure on treatment centres that are being expanded to cope with rising infections.

The World Health Organization says the outbreak, caused by Bundibugyo virus, remains uncontrolled despite improvements in some areas. The shortage of personnel is becoming one of the major obstacles to operating newly established treatment facilities.

Frontline Health Workers Battle Ebola Outbreak in DR Congo

Treatment centres are expanding faster than staffing

WHO says the response has expanded considerably since the outbreak was declared in May.

By 1 September, 59 care facilities had been identified across affected provinces, with a combined capacity of 1,346 beds. More than 4,000 additional health professionals had also been deployed to reinforce existing teams.

But the expansion has not eliminated the staffing gap.

WHO Ebola Incident Manager Catherine Smallwood said that although treatment beds are being added, facilities do not always have enough personnel and operational partners to run them.

WHO representative in Congo Anne Ancia said an Ebola treatment centre can require about 300 health professionals, including nurses, doctors, anaesthetists and hygiene specialists.

“The human resources gap is one of the biggest gaps,” Smallwood said, according to the Associated Press report.

DR Congo Expands Ebola Treatment Capacity as Cases Rise

Outbreak has reached seven provinces

The latest WHO situation report, covering data through 23 September, says the outbreak had reached 63 health zones across seven provinces.

The affected provinces are Ituri, North Kivu, Haut-Uélé, Bas-Uélé, Tshopo, South Kivu and Sud Ubangi. Two of the newest affected areas are Bulu in Sud Ubangi and Dungu in Haut-Uélé, near the South Sudan border.

As of 23 September, WHO reported:

Measure	Confirmed total
Confirmed cases	7,890
Confirmed deaths	3,799
Case-fatality ratio	48.1%
Recovered patients	1,966
Affected health zones	63
Affected provinces	7

WHO cautions that national figures conceal significant differences between provinces. Ituri, the outbreak’s epicentre, has seen transmission decline from its mid-August peak, while North Kivu experienced a substantial rise in cases during September.

Health Workers Face Mounting Pressure as Ebola Spreads

North Kivu puts additional pressure on the response

The shortage is particularly concerning in North Kivu, where the number of cases increased sharply over recent weeks.

According to the Associated Press report, cases there rose 73% over three weeks, even as some other provinces recorded declines. WHO said transmission patterns remain highly uneven and that the outbreak is still not under control.

The situation is complicated by insecurity, displacement and population movements, which can make it harder for response teams to reach communities, identify cases and monitor people who have been exposed.

Contact tracing remains a major challenge

The staffing problem is occurring alongside difficulties in tracking people who may have been exposed.

Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya told Reuters that health authorities had identified only about 30,000 people potentially exposed through contact tracing, compared with an estimated more than 400,000 people who could require follow-up.

WHO’s latest figures show that 26,980 of 32,342 identified contacts were successfully monitored during the 24 hours preceding 23 September — an 83.4% monitoring rate.

These figures illustrate the scale of the operational challenge: even where health teams are reaching large numbers of contacts, the overall population requiring surveillance is expanding as the outbreak reaches new areas.

Health workers have also faced payment problems

The response has been further affected by difficulties surrounding health-worker pay.

Frontline workers in Ituri previously went on strike over unpaid wages. According to the Associated Press, officials said they were checking payroll lists after concerns that names of people not involved in the Ebola response had been included. Some workers reportedly received outstanding payments only partially or had not received them.

For a response that requires large numbers of specialised personnel to work continuously in high-risk environments, reliable staffing and payment are therefore central operational issues.

Children face particularly serious risks

WHO has also highlighted the severity of the disease among young children.

Children under five have recorded a case-fatality rate of more than 60%, compared with roughly 40% among adults, according to WHO’s regional emergency director Marie Roseline Belizaire.

Identifying Ebola in very young children can also be difficult because they cannot always describe their symptoms clearly, while the early symptoms can resemble other common illnesses.

International assistance continues

The scale of the outbreak has prompted additional international support.

The United States announced an additional $267 million for efforts to fight Ebola in central Africa, while WHO and other partners continue supporting surveillance, treatment, infection prevention and community-based response operations.

WHO’s latest risk assessment places the risk in the DRC at very high, the risk to countries sharing land borders with the DRC at high, and the risk to the wider African region and globally at low. WHO is not currently recommending restrictions on travel or trade with affected countries.

What the latest figures mean

The latest data do not show a uniformly worsening situation everywhere. Some provinces, particularly Ituri, have recorded declines in transmission. At the same time, new geographic spread, rising transmission in parts of North Kivu and shortages of personnel mean the overall outbreak remains difficult to control.

The central challenge is therefore not simply the number of treatment beds. Facilities need enough trained staff, funding, protective equipment and access to affected communities to make those beds operational.

With the outbreak now spanning seven provinces, maintaining and expanding that workforce is becoming a critical part of efforts to reduce transmission and deaths.