Britain sends team to South Sudan as country braces for Ebola
The Telegraph
T
The Telegraph
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Britain has deployed three disease control specialists to South Sudan to prepare for potential Ebola cases crossing from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The move comes as the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record spreads rapidly in eastern Congo, where over 7,800 people have been infected and 3,700 have died since May.
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Britain sends team to South Sudan as country braces for Ebola
Experts deployed to the capital are on hand to assist with testing, infection control and awareness, in anticipation of imported cases
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Maeve Cullinan Global Health Security Reporter Show biography !Maeve Cullinan
Maeve Cullinan is a reporter for The Telegraph’s Global Health Security desk. She covers issues including disease outbreaks, conflict, global development, humanitarian crises, and sexual violence and has reported from Africa and Asia. She was named on the Press 30 under 30 list in 2025.
Published 25 September 2026 3:08pm BST
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!Teams from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies prepare for burial at Mbiyo cemetery the body of a fourth orphan who died from Ebola virus disease at an orphanage in Bunia, Ituri Province
*More than 7,800 people have caught the virus since May, 3,700 of whom have died Credit: Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images*
Maeve Cullinan Global Health Security Reporter Show biography !Maeve Cullinan
Maeve Cullinan is a reporter for The Telegraph’s Global Health Security desk. She covers issues including disease outbreaks, conflict, global development, humanitarian crises, and sexual violence and has reported from Africa and Asia. She was named on the Press 30 under 30 list in 2025.
Published 25 September 2026 3:08pm BST
British Ebola specialists have been deployed to South Sudan because of fears the haemorrhagic fever will spread from neighbouring Congo.
A rare form of Ebola, known as the Bundibugyo species, is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where more than 7,800 people have caught the virus since May, 3,700 of whom have died.
To prepare for the threat of imported cases, Britain has positioned three experts in and around the South Sudanese capital, Juba. They will assist and train local authorities on infection control, set up awareness campaigns for local communities, and test people crossing the border for the virus.
The team is employed by the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) Public Health Rapid Support Team (PHRST), which is regularly sent to the epicentre of disease outbreaks overseas – for instant the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus in the South Atlantic earlier this year.
The current Ebola outbreak is the fastest-growing ever recorded and is on course to become the largest in history, overtaking the 2014-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak, in which around 30,000 people contracted the haemorrhagic fever and roughly a third died.
Experts fear it is only a matter of time before the virus spreads to South Sudan, which shares a 500-mile border with the DRC. Thousands of people cross the frontier each day to work, attend school and trade goods, mostly fish, in lucrative markets between the two countries.
If the virus gained a foothold in South Sudan, which became the newest country on earth after severing ties with Khartoum in 2011, experts fear the consequences would be catastrophic and worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.
“It’s so variable as to where the outbreak is spreading at the moment, there are cases from some of the border towns \[with South Sudan],” Ed Newman, director of the PHRST, told The Telegraph.
“There’s a feeling \[Ebola could spread] any day. Maybe you could say we’ve been lucky so far,” Mr Newman said, on the sidelines of a UKHSA conference in Manchester.
!Cleaning staff wash reusable boots and gloves, disinfect equipment and maintain the facility's common areas as part of infection prevention measures and the of the care of patients suffering from or suspected of having Ebola virus disease at the Ebola treatment centre of Rwampara General Reference Hospital in Rwampara, Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of Congo
*Washed and disinfected PPE is laid out to dry at the Ebola treatment centre of Rwampara General Reference Hospital in Ituri Province Credit: Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images*
The British government has also helped to facilitate a memorandum of understanding between South Sudan and the DRC to share information in relation to the outbreak to help both countries track and trace cases.
Dr Bayad Nozad, a senior public health advisor at the UKHSA said: “Having two countries to agree to share information across the borders is a big thing. We are facilitating and being the catalyst behind the scenes to ensure there is an MOU signed between DRC and other countries, and South Sudan and Uganda have just signed one.”
Uganda, which also borders the DRC, recorded 20 cases of Ebola in Bundibugyo earlier in the summer. At least 15 of those were in people who had crossed the Congolese border to seek treatment in Uganda, which has a better-equipped healthcare system than the DRC.
The Foreign Office has contributed £78 million to the Ebola response so far to “support efforts to contain the disease, save lives, and reduce the risk of further international spread”, Kirsty McNeill, the Minister for Development, said in a statement earlier this month.
While some of that money has been invested in countries neighbouring the DRC to help them prepare for a potential influx of cases, most of the funds has been channelled directly into the eastern flank of the Congo – where almost all of the cases have been recorded and where decades of conflict and instability have decimated the region’s healthcare system.
There are some hopes the peak has already been hit in some places: an analysis published earlier this week by the World Health Organization (WHO) found the infection rates fell by 26 per cent over the last 21 days in Ituri, the province where the virus first emerged. Since May, more than 5,000 cases have been confirmed.
But in North Kivu, large swathes of which are controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, cases are increasing exponentially, and have risen by 73 per cent since early September alone.
!Two children react as a motorised Ebola virus disease awareness caravan organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrives in Rwampara
*A motorised Ebola awareness caravan organised by the WHO arrives in Rwampara Credit: Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images*
The Bundibugyo strain currently has no treatment or vaccine, although clinical trials are ongoing.
The charity Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF) has this week rolled out a study amongst frontline healthcare workers to see if the ERVEBO vaccine, which protects against the Zaire strain of Ebola, could work against Bundibugyo.
Although this has made containing its spread challenging, it is far from the only issue hampering containment efforts.
Senior health officials directly involved in the outbreak response in the Congo told The Telegraph that mistrust of authorities is rife. Despite millions of pounds of investment into containing the outbreak, many local people are not benef
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Britain sends team to South Sudan as country braces for Ebola
Experts deployed to the capital are on hand to assist with testing, infection control and awareness, in anticipation of imported cases
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Maeve Cullinan Global Health Security Reporter Show biography !Maeve Cullinan
Maeve Cullinan is a reporter for The Telegraph’s Global Health Security desk. She covers issues including disease outbreaks, conflict, global development, humanitarian crises, and sexual violence and has reported from Africa and Asia. She was named on the Press 30 under 30 list in 2025.
Published 25 September 2026 3:08pm BST
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!Teams from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies prepare for burial at Mbiyo cemetery the body of a fourth orphan who died from Ebola virus disease at an orphanage in Bunia, Ituri Province
*More than 7,800 people have caught the virus since May, 3,700 of whom have died Credit: Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images*
Maeve Cullinan Global Health Security Reporter Show biography !Maeve Cullinan
Maeve Cullinan is a reporter for The Telegraph’s Global Health Security desk. She covers issues including disease outbreaks, conflict, global development, humanitarian crises, and sexual violence and has reported from Africa and Asia. She was named on the Press 30 under 30 list in 2025.
Published 25 September 2026 3:08pm BST
British Ebola specialists have been deployed to South Sudan because of fears the haemorrhagic fever will spread from neighbouring Congo.
A rare form of Ebola, known as the Bundibugyo species, is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where more than 7,800 people have caught the virus since May, 3,700 of whom have died.
To prepare for the threat of imported cases, Britain has positioned three experts in and around the South Sudanese capital, Juba. They will assist and train local authorities on infection control, set up awareness campaigns for local communities, and test people crossing the border for the virus.
The team is employed by the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) Public Health Rapid Support Team (PHRST), which is regularly sent to the epicentre of disease outbreaks overseas – for instant the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus in the South Atlantic earlier this year.
The current Ebola outbreak is the fastest-growing ever recorded and is on course to become the largest in history, overtaking the 2014-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak, in which around 30,000 people contracted the haemorrhagic fever and roughly a third died.
Experts fear it is only a matter of time before the virus spreads to South Sudan, which shares a 500-mile border with the DRC. Thousands of people cross the frontier each day to work, attend school and trade goods, mostly fish, in lucrative markets between the two countries.
If the virus gained a foothold in South Sudan, which became the newest country on earth after severing ties with Khartoum in 2011, experts fear the consequences would be catastrophic and worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.
“It’s so variable as to where the outbreak is spreading at the moment, there are cases from some of the border towns \[with South Sudan],” Ed Newman, director of the PHRST, told The Telegraph.
“There’s a feeling \[Ebola could spread] any day. Maybe you could say we’ve been lucky so far,” Mr Newman said, on the sidelines of a UKHSA conference in Manchester.
!Cleaning staff wash reusable boots and gloves, disinfect equipment and maintain the facility's common areas as part of infection prevention measures and the of the care of patients suffering from or suspected of having Ebola virus disease at the Ebola treatment centre of Rwampara General Reference Hospital in Rwampara, Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of Congo
*Washed and disinfected PPE is laid out to dry at the Ebola treatment centre of Rwampara General Reference Hospital in Ituri Province Credit: Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images*
The British government has also helped to facilitate a memorandum of understanding between South Sudan and the DRC to share information in relation to the outbreak to help both countries track and trace cases.
Dr Bayad Nozad, a senior public health advisor at the UKHSA said: “Having two countries to agree to share information across the borders is a big thing. We are facilitating and being the catalyst behind the scenes to ensure there is an MOU signed between DRC and other countries, and South Sudan and Uganda have just signed one.”
Uganda, which also borders the DRC, recorded 20 cases of Ebola in Bundibugyo earlier in the summer. At least 15 of those were in people who had crossed the Congolese border to seek treatment in Uganda, which has a better-equipped healthcare system than the DRC.
The Foreign Office has contributed £78 million to the Ebola response so far to “support efforts to contain the disease, save lives, and reduce the risk of further international spread”, Kirsty McNeill, the Minister for Development, said in a statement earlier this month.
While some of that money has been invested in countries neighbouring the DRC to help them prepare for a potential influx of cases, most of the funds has been channelled directly into the eastern flank of the Congo – where almost all of the cases have been recorded and where decades of conflict and instability have decimated the region’s healthcare system.
There are some hopes the peak has already been hit in some places: an analysis published earlier this week by the World Health Organization (WHO) found the infection rates fell by 26 per cent over the last 21 days in Ituri, the province where the virus first emerged. Since May, more than 5,000 cases have been confirmed.
But in North Kivu, large swathes of which are controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, cases are increasing exponentially, and have risen by 73 per cent since early September alone.
!Two children react as a motorised Ebola virus disease awareness caravan organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrives in Rwampara
*A motorised Ebola awareness caravan organised by the WHO arrives in Rwampara Credit: Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images*
The Bundibugyo strain currently has no treatment or vaccine, although clinical trials are ongoing.
The charity Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF) has this week rolled out a study amongst frontline healthcare workers to see if the ERVEBO vaccine, which protects against the Zaire strain of Ebola, could work against Bundibugyo.
Although this has made containing its spread challenging, it is far from the only issue hampering containment efforts.
Senior health officials directly involved in the outbreak response in the Congo told The Telegraph that mistrust of authorities is rife. Despite millions of pounds of investment into containing the outbreak, many local people are not benef
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Source: The Telegraph
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