Health ministers from the eight member states of the East African Community will hold an emergency virtual meeting on Monday and Tuesday to consider regional actions to contain the Ebola epidemic declared in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on May 15, as the African Union’s public health agency has recorded 246 suspected deaths and the virus has spread to neighboring Uganda with eight confirmed infections.

The EAC Secretariat announced on X that the meeting is part of a series of activities that also include an emergency crisis meeting of members, sessions of the Technical Working Group on communicable and non‑communicable diseases, and another technical working group on harmonizing regulations for potential vaccines, therapies, and diagnostics against Ebola.

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The EAC, based in Arusha, was founded in 2001 and includes Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, the DRC, and Somalia.

The African Union health agency reported Thursday that the DRC’s 17th Ebola epidemic since 1976 has caused 246 suspected deaths. Uganda has confirmed eight infections, including one death from an imported case of a Congolese national.

The outbreak corresponds to the Bundibugyo strain, which has a fatality rate between 30% and 50% and has no authorized vaccine or specific treatment, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO considers the risk of the outbreak “high” in sub‑Saharan Africa and “low” globally.

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