Efforts to prevent the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being hindered by conflict in the country, the head of the World Health Organization has warned.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X, “Stopping this Ebola transmission depends entirely on humanitarian access.”

He wrote that eastern DRC “now faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict with the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province outpacing the response.”

“The Ebola Bundibugyo virus has no approved vaccine nor treatment,” he said.

“Stopping this Ebola transmission depends entirely on humanitarian access. Yet ongoing clashes are driving mass displacement, pushing exposed contacts into overcrowded camps and severing critical containment corridors.

“Frontline workers are risking everything, while attacks on health facilities make tracking cases and their contacts nearly impossible. We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling. We urge all warring parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire to contain this outbreak.”

The WHO director-general is set to arrive in DRC on Wednesday to coordinate the relief effort as the organization warned the deadly outbreak is spreading faster than efforts to contain it.

The WHO confirmed that the latest number of suspected deaths stood at 220, with more than 900 suspected cases. Tedros said the epidemic was likely to get worse before it gets better.

Last week, the United States temporarily banned green-card holders from entering the country if they had been in DRC, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days. U.S. citizens, nationals and green-card holders had previously been exempt from a 30-day ban.

The CDC has said the current Ebola risk to the U.S. “remains low.”

An American physician working in DRC, identified as Dr. Peter Stafford, is among those to have tested positive for Ebola. He was taken to Germany for treatment and is not considered critically ill. His wife, who is also a doctor, and their four children have tested negative.

Follow the latest updates below.

Authorities in Uganda closed its borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday “with immediate effect,” the Associated Press reports, as cases of a rare strain of Ebola surge.

The decision by Vice President Jesca Alupo’s Ebola task force came after a rise in Ugandan health workers exposed to the virus by Congolese patients who crossed the border before the Ebola outbreak was declared in mid-May.

When the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak an emergency of international concern, it said in a May 17 statement, “No country should close its borders or place any restrictions on travel and trade. Such measures are usually implemented out of fear and have no basis in science.”

The border between Uganda and Congo is several hundred miles long and can be crossed by various footpaths that don’t include official border posts.

The WHO has also said border closures can “push the movement of people and goods to informal border crossings that are not monitored, thus increasing the chances of the spread of disease.”

Discussions are underway between the United States and Kenya to open a quarantine facility in Kenya for American citizens exposed to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The Trump administration was expected to deploy staff from the U.S. Public Health Service, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, to staff the quarantine facility, according to the report.

Kenya’s government has not yet approved the plan, according to Reuters, and it remains unclear where exactly in Kenya the quarantine facility would be located.

As the Ebola outbeak continues to spread in DRC, Project Hope has outlined concerns over whether the virus has reached South Sudan.

“As case numbers continue to rise, there is increasing uncertainty on whether the virus has already reached South Sudan, which is facing a humanitarian crisis,” the emergency response team said in a release on Wednesday.

“With no vaccine available in the near future, local authorities and humanitarian partners are relying on IPC practices, community education, and rapid hot spot identification to stem the outbreak.”

People in the Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo are struggling with a lack of resources as they fight the Ebola outbreak, the area’s military governor has said.

Johnny Luboya Nkashama told French broadcaster RFI, "People in affected areas are not receiving enough food.”

He added that “a swift response” was needed to prevent the province "from descending into catastrophe."

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned Monday that the Ebola outbreak is spreading faster than health workers can contain it.

Tedros said that countries bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo were at especially high risk.

He cited three concerns that made the response to the current outbreak difficult.

First, the initial delay in detecting the outbreak meant officials were “playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic.”

Second, there is a lack of approved vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.

Third, a “significant distrust” of outside authorities among the local population has led to two attacks on health facilities.

“We are facing an extremely serious and difficult outbreak. It will get worse before it gets better,” Tedros added.

The number of suspected Ebola cases in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has climbed above 900, Congolese authorities announced Sunday, the Associated Press reported.

The new tally marks a jump from the roughly 750 suspected cases the World Health Organization cited Friday, when WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus raised the agency's risk assessment for DRC to "very high."

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned Saturday that 10 African countries are at risk of being affected by the Ebola outbreak in addition to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where cases have already been confirmed.

"We have 10 countries at risk," Jean Kaseya, the head of Africa CDC, said, according to France 24. He listed Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.

Three Red Cross volunteers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are believed to be among the first known victims of the current Ebola outbreak, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said Saturday.

The volunteers — Alikana Udumusi Augustin, Sezabo Katanabo and Ajiko Chandiru Viviane — worked out of the Mongbwalu branch in Ituri province in DRC, the region at the center of the outbreak. The IFRC said they are believed to have contracted Ebola on March 27 while handling bodies during a humanitarian mission unrelated to Ebola, before the outbreak had been identified.

"These volunteers lost their lives while serving their communities with courage and humanity," the IFRC said.

Uganda's Ministry of Health said Saturday that three new cases of Ebola virus disease have been confirmed in the country, bringing its total to five.

Two of the new cases are known contacts of Uganda's first confirmed patient: a driver who transported the patient and a health worker who helped treat them. Both are receiving care.

The third is a Congolese woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo who entered Uganda from DRC with mild abdominal symptoms, the ministry said.

"All contacts linked to the confirmed cases have since been identified and are being closely monitored and followed up by response teams," the ministry said in the press release, signed by Prof. Charles Olaro, director general of health services.

Tom Fletcher, the head of humanitarian relief for the United Nations, described the challenges facing global health workers as they respond to the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

“These are some of the most difficult operating environments in the world for our life-saving work,” he wrote Friday on social media. “We face conflict and high population movement. We are working to secure safe and sustained access for frontline responders, including to areas controlled by armed groups.”

Fletcher added that “community trust is essential” in areas where many locals are skeptical of outside intervention from international aid groups. The depth of that skepticism was highlighted on Thursday when residents in the DRC burned down tents at an Ebola treatment center after being stopped from retrieving the body of a local man who is believed to have died from the disease.

Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, told ESPN on Friday that players on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s national soccer team must isolate for at least 21 days before coming to the United States for the World Cup.

"We've made it very clear … they need to maintain that bubble or they risk not being able to travel to the United States. We cannot be any clearer," he said.

DRC is one of 10 African nations to qualify for the tournament, which is being jointly hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada. They are scheduled to play Portugal in Houston in their opening match on June 17.

All members of the team and their head coach are based outside of DRC, with most playing professionally in France, according to ESPN. The team was scheduled to hold a three-day training camp in their home country before the World Cup, but that plan was canceled earlier this week.

The federal government has barred foreign nationals who have been in DRC, Uganda or South Sudan within the past 21 days from entering the United States. It’s unclear whether those restrictions will still be in place when the World Cup kicks off on June 11.

The CDC said Friday that it is currently coordinating with FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, on protocols for the tournament in light of the ongoing outbreak.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a conference call on Friday regarding the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

“Currently, the risk to the United States remains low, because Ebola is spread through direct contact with body fluids and because the United States has a strong public health monitoring, infection control, and healthcare preparedness system in place,” said Dr. Satish K. Pillai, incident manager for CDC's Ebola response.

The Department of Homeland Security issued an order late Wednesday night requiring U.S.-bound flights carrying passengers from Ebola-affected countries to land at Washington Dulles International Airport for additional health screenings.

“I want to step back for a moment and remind everyone that you cannot get Ebola from passing someone in an airport, sitting near someone briefly, or through other casual contact,” Pillai explained Friday. “It's also important to note that as with any outbreak response, information will continue to evolve and CDC will continue to update guidance and work with you as we learn more.”

At a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo poses a “very high” risk at the national level as cases and deaths continue to rise.

There are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths in DRC, he said, warning that the epidemic is “much larger” than the number of confirmed cases (82) and deaths (7) would indicate.

The global risk posed by the Ebola outbreak, however, remains low, he said.

The CDC on Thursday reported that the health ministries in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have counted 148 suspected deaths caused by Ebola since the outbreak began.

That’s nine more deaths than the WHO reported on Wednesday. There have been a total of 575 suspected Ebola cases, though just 51 have been confirmed by lab testing, the CDC said. All but one of the deaths occurred in DRC.

The Department of Homeland Security issued an order late Wednesday night requiring all U.S. travelers who have recently been to areas affected by the Ebola outbreak to be redirected to flights arriving at Washington-Dulles International Airport, where they will undergo additional health screenings.

Under new protocols implemented by the CDC on Thursday, travelers entering the United States who have been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan within the past 21 days will be brought to a separate area of the airport where they will be evaluated for signs of illness and interviewed about their recent travel history.

Travelers who do not have symptoms will be given information on monitoring their health and actions to take if symptoms later appear before continuing to their final destinations. Their contact information will be shared with state and local health departments.

Travelers who have symptoms and “are reasonably believed to be infected with or exposed to Ebola” will be transferred to a hospital for further assessment, the CDC said, adding that the hospital “will isolate the sick person, provide medical care as needed, and work toward a diagnosis.”

Foreign nationals who have recently been in the affected countries are currently barred from entering the United States under an order issued by the DHS and CDC earlier this week.

“To date, no suspected, probable, or confirmed cases of Ebola have been reported in the United States, and the risk of Ebola domestically is low,” the CDC said in a press release announcing the new screening procedures. “However, public health entry screening is part of a layered approach that, when used with other public health measures already in place to detect symptomatic arriving travelers, can slow and reduce the spread of disease into the United States.”

Dr. Peter Stafford, who is being treated in Germany after contracting Ebola while treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is “critically ill but not acutely deteriorating,” according to a new update from Serge, a Christian missionary group with which he works.

“Peter is continuing to show the predictable sequence of Ebola signs and symptoms. He passed through the first days of nonspecific symptoms (fever, aches, fatigue), and has now passed into a phase with vomiting, diarrhea, and rash, with labs trending slightly in the right direction,” Dr. Scott Myhre, Serge’s area director for east and central Africa, said in a blog post on the organization’s website.

In a brief phone conversation, Stafford told Myhre that he believes being evacuated to Germany may have saved his life.

“Before I was evacuated I was feeling really concerned I wasn’t going to make it. And now I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said, according to Myhre.

Stafford’s wife, who is also a doctor, and their four children are considered high-risk contacts and are being quarantined in Germany. All of them are currently asymptomatic. Another American doctor who works with Stafford, Dr. Patrick LaRochelle, was evacuated to the Czech Republic, where he is being monitored under quarantine.

People set fire to an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, on Thursday after being stopped from retrieving the body of a local man, police said. The town is part of the outbreak happening in eastern Congo, a region that lacks health facilities and where many people have been displaced by armed conflict.

The bodies of those who die from Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to additional spread when people gather for funerals and bury bodies, which is why authorities are handling the burial of suspected victims where possible.

These precautions have clashed with local customs, which may include mourners touching the deceased one last time during the funeral as a final farewell.

Health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC that local facilities are being overwhelmed by the spread of Ebola.

Trish Newport, a Doctors Without Borders emergency program manager, told the BBC that health facilities are reporting that they are "full of suspect cases” and “don't have any space.”

She said, “This gives you a vision of how crazy it is right now.”

The number of suspected cases has topped 600, with the World Health Organization stressing that the scale of the epidemic is far larger than the number of confirmed cases.

The majority of cases have been found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 136 deaths in the country, while one death has occurred in neighboring Uganda.

However, there are almost 600 suspected cases in DRC, with the outbreak initially going undetected as a result of incorrectly stored lab results combined with local funeral practices.