WHO warns Ebola cases in DRC could double
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We hear from a journalist in eastern DR Congo on how situation is becoming more and more difficult for people in the city of Goma, a major transport hub - and we speak to Tom Frieden, a leading US scientist involved in fighting the last major Ebola outbreak.
Also on the programme: An interview with former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, pardoned by Donald Trump, now in hiding in the US. We have a rare report from inside Afghanistan. And an age-old mystery at sea has been solved - we hear how biologists rumbled the whale.
(Photo: UNICEF staff receive medical supplies from an aircraft in Ituri province, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 19, 2026. Credit: REUTERS/Gradel Muyisa Mumbere)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. |
| 0:11.5 | It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London. |
| 0:15.6 | I'm Tim Fraggs. |
| 0:17.2 | We're beginning with a growing concern mirroring the growing cases, the growing geographical spread of this deadly Ebola outbreak. |
| 0:26.2 | A virologist from the World Health Organization has told the BBC that she expects the number of suspected Ebola cases in eastern Congo could soon double to 1,000. |
| 0:37.3 | And yet given how limited testing facilities are, that may well be an undercount. |
| 0:43.2 | What we do know is that the virus has killed more than 130 people so far, |
| 0:47.9 | and that part of the danger is in how long it was before the outbreak was first detected. |
| 0:53.4 | The World Health Organisation representative in the DRC is Dr. Anne Ansiya. |
| 0:58.4 | She spoke to the BBC from Bunia in eastern Congo and said that that delay meant that the virus |
| 1:03.6 | quickly spread before preventative measures could be put in place. |
| 1:08.4 | As we start investigating, we are hearing more about, you know, cases that are also in the |
| 1:14.4 | southern provinces of North Kivu. |
| 1:17.1 | We've got two cases that have crossed the border and went in Uganda. |
| 1:21.6 | So the more we are investigating this outbreak, the more we realize that it has already |
| 1:26.2 | disseminated at least a little bit |
| 1:28.6 | across border, but also in other provinces. |
| 1:32.3 | Several hundred kilometres south from where she was talking from, from Bunia, is the city of |
| 1:36.9 | Goma, which since early last year has been under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 |
| 1:42.5 | rebel group. And that, as I've been hearing from the journalist Alain Waikani in Goma, |
| 1:48.2 | is complicating what's already a very difficult situation. |
... |
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