WHO declares an Ebola public health emergency in the DRC
Global News Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 8.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nearly ninety deaths have been recorded so far in the Democratic Republic of Congo with medical experts warning that the current strain of the Ebola virus has a very high mortality rate. The DRC's health minister said that no vaccine or specific treatment was available. Also, more than fifty children between the ages of two and five are abducted in northeast Nigeria during attacks on three schools in the same town. Several people are seriously injured after a car is driven into pedestrians in the Italian city of Modena. Two rival marches are held on the same day in London with pro-Palestinian demonstrators and British far-right activists kept apart by the police. And Bulgaria stuns Eurovision to become the surprise winner at the song contest in Austria.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Sunday the 17th of May, these are our main stories. |
| 0:18.9 | The WHO declares a growing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic |
| 0:23.3 | of Congo as an emergency of international concern. Several people are injured in Italy after a man |
| 0:30.0 | drives his car into pedestrians, and more than 50 children, many of them toddlers, are kidnapped |
| 0:36.0 | from schools in Nigeria. |
| 0:40.1 | Also in this podcast, an underwater tragedy in the Maldives claims another life. |
| 0:46.1 | It could have been avoided, you know. This shouldn't have been rushed. |
| 0:50.6 | We get a military diver's assessment and... |
| 0:53.4 | I want to thank everybody who felt the Bangaranga and felt connected to the force. |
| 1:00.8 | A surprise winner at this year's Eurovision song contest. |
| 1:08.0 | Ebola is no stranger in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has seen more than a dozen outbreaks since the virus was first identified there 50 years ago. |
| 1:17.2 | But medical experts are concerned about the latest outbreak of the infectious disease, which is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids. |
| 1:25.6 | The DRC health minister Samuel Roger Camber has warned |
| 1:28.9 | it's a strain with a very high death rate but sought to reassure the public. |
| 1:37.3 | We've had confirmation that this is Ebola. The strain is already known. It notably struck in |
| 1:43.2 | Uganda and also here back in 2012. |
| 1:46.4 | There were no vaccines or specific treatment. |
| 1:48.9 | But this is not our first time dealing with the epidemic. |
| 1:51.6 | This is our 17th Ebola outbreak. |
| 1:54.1 | We know how to keep it under control. |
... |
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