Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a public health emergency of international concern. The WHO said the outbreak in DR Congo's eastern Ituri province, which has seen around 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths reported, does not yet meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency. We hear from the man who first identified the virus.
Also in the programme: will the US and China come to an agreement on artificial intelligence?; and the Iranian family saga in the running for the International Booker Prize.
(Photo: Ugandan doctors wear their personal protective equipment at the Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital Isolation Centre in Entebbe, Uganda, 20 October 2022. Credit: ISAAC KASAMANI/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.1 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London. |
| 0:14.9 | I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:16.2 | Coming up on the programme as Ukraine launches one of its biggest ever aerial attacks on Russia. |
| 0:21.2 | We'll try to get a sense of where Vladimir Putin's war is heading. |
| 0:25.4 | Have China in the US established any new guardrails for artificial intelligence? |
| 0:29.7 | And? |
| 0:30.4 | OK, Vienna, let the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest begin. |
| 0:37.5 | We'll spare you the intervening three hours. You'll hear who won in 20 or so minutes time. |
| 0:44.8 | Before that, we're beginning with what is now officially a public health emergency of international |
| 0:50.5 | concern. That's what the World Health Organization is calling the outbreak of Ebola |
| 0:54.5 | in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And perhaps even more concerning than that is the warning |
| 1:00.0 | from the WHO that the current outbreak may actually be much larger than what so far being detected |
| 1:05.1 | and reported. So what do we know? Well, the latest figures show that there have been more than |
| 1:09.7 | 250 suspected cases, about 80 deaths reported. |
| 1:14.9 | There's been a case in the Eastern DRC city of Goma today, which is under the control of the M23 rebel group. |
| 1:20.9 | And there have also now been cases picked up in the Ugandan capital Kampala, as I've been hearing from the Ugandan government spokesman, Alan Kusja. |
| 1:28.8 | There's been a second case of Ebola confirmed in Uganda. |
| 1:32.6 | And again, an imported case like the first one where we had someone from Congo coming to a hospital and die the hospital. |
| 1:40.6 | And his body was then taken back to Congo. |
| 1:47.2 | This other person also died at a hospital, |
| 1:53.9 | having come to Kampala for treatment. There are no local infections. So there is no Ugandan that has been infected with Ebola at the moment. All the cases that we have have been imported. |
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