Ebola: Africa CDC demands accountability for more than US$700 million

According to Dr Kaseya, the gap came to light through a verification carried out with the Congolese health authorities. Donors provided precise data showing the disbursement of US$962 million; the INSP then called the implementing partners together to trace the funds. Fewer than one in three answered the call.

“Donors gave us precise evidence that US$962 million was disbursed to implementing partners. At the meeting held to trace these funds, fewer than 30% of the partners took part. Among them, we could trace only a little over US$200 million. We were also told that about US$100 million still exists and has never been used. This means these funds are still held by some partners.”

Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General, Africa CDC

The Ministry of Health declared the 17th Ebola epidemic in the DRC on 15 May 2026, caused by the Bundibugyo strain. First reported in Ituri, it has spread to other provinces, including North Kivu and South Kivu: by 5 September 2026, the National Institute of Public Health counted 6,604 confirmed cases and 3,175 deaths. In provinces coming out of war, where health centres have been looted and many lack medicines, every dollar of the response counts.

Every dollar of emergency aid that does not reach health centres is a dollar taken from patients. The Centre de Recherche sur l’Anti-Corruption (CERC) welcomes the work of Africa CDC and the INSP, and calls for:

1. the publication, partner by partner, of the amounts received, spent and remaining for each Ebola response;
2. the partners who stayed away from the verification to present their accounts to the INSP and Africa CDC, by a set deadline;
3. the swift reallocation of the roughly US$100 million never used to the health zones and health centres that need it;
4. an independent audit of the response funds, with its results made public;
5. communities to take part in the monitoring: with HealthCheck, citizens can report, anonymously, what their health centre actually lacks.

These statements reopen the debate on transparency and accountability in the management of international funding for health emergencies in the DRC, a country that has faced several major epidemics in recent decades. It is one of the areas of our Strategy 2027–2030: health centres that receive what is meant for them, everywhere.

Sources: statements by Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General of Africa CDC, at a press conference in Kinshasa on Wednesday 14 October 2026 (Africanews); situation reports of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP); Africanews, 24 March 2020.