Clinical trial for two possible Ebola treatments begins in DR Congo

By  News On Air   Jul 03, 2026

A clinical trial of two possible Ebola treatments has begun in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). The World Health Organization (WHO), Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that the first participant had been enrolled in the Platform Adaptive Randomized Trial for New and Repurposed Filovirus TreatmentS (PARTNERS), which will test treatments for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus. 

He said, 438 people have died in the outbreak so far, with 1,406 confirmed cases reported. The Bundibugyo strain is highly infectious, and there are currently no approved vaccines or specific treatments. The current trial is sponsored by the WHO, and is being co-ordinated by scientists at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in DR Congo, the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, and the University of Oxford in the UK. The current outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo began in May, though transmission had been going undetected for some time.