Outbreak of Bundibugyo Virus in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo suspected of killing more than 220 people.

More than 220 people are thought to have died, and more than 900 people to have been infected, in an outbreak of Bundibugyo Virus in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a press release issued by the United Nations on 25 May 2025. Bundibugyo Virus, properly Bundibugyo ebolavirus, is a member of the Ebola Virus Family, Filoviridae, which causes an Ebola-like hemorrhagic fever, and is often referred to simply as 'Ebola'.

The World Health Organization was first notified of the outbreak on 5 May 2026, as an unknown illness with a high mortality rate which had already claimed the lives of four health workers in the Mongbwalu Health Zone of Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. The identity of the disease as Bundibugyo Virus was determined from samples sent to the Institut national de recherche biomédicale in Kinshasa on 15 May. 

By this time the Virus had spread to the Rwampara and Bunia health zones, also in Ituri Province, with 246 reported cases and 80 fatalities. Health workers began investigating clusters of deaths with compatible symptoms in the community. A case was also confirmed in Uganda, after an elderly man from Democratic Republic of Congo was admitted to a private hospital with severe symptoms and subsequently died. This patient was subsequently confirmed as having been infected with Bundibugyo Virus by the Central Emergency Surveillance and Response Support Laboratory at Wandegeya. His remains were subsequently returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. A second case was reported in Uganda on 16 May, this time a Ugandan national who had recently returned from Democratic Republic of Congo. This patient is being treated in Uganda; no transmission of the Virus in Uganda has been reported. 

Health Zones affected by Bundibugyo Virus Disease in Democratic Republic of Congo, as of 16 May 2026. World Health Organization.

By 21 May the outbreak had spread to North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, with 746 suspected cases and 176 deaths thought to have been caused by Bundibugyo Virus, although only 85 cases, including ten fatalities have been confirmed by laboratory analysis. No further cases had been reported in Uganda, but an American national who had been working as a surgeon in Democratic Republic of Congo was confirmed as having the Virus and airlifted to Germany for treatment.

Risk mapping of Health Zones in Democratic Republic of Congo as of 21 May 2026. World Health Organization.

Bundibugyo Virus was first described in 2008 following an outbreak in Bundibugyo District Uganda. Only one subsequent outbreak has been reported prior to 2026, in Province Orientale, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2012. Thus, although the Virus is closely related to Ebola, and produces a similar disease, there has been no specific treatment developed for it, and no vaccine to prevent its spread. This has made it difficult to implement an effective treatment and containment program against a disease with a 30% fatality rate.

Ituri Province is located in the northeast of Democratic Republic of Congo, with borders with Uganda and South Sudan. It has a large, if generally informal, mining sector, which attracts workers from neighbouring provinces and countries. The infrastructure of Ituri Province is generally weak, with healthcare services largely dependent on support by aid programs run by western countries, particularly the United States. These programs have been cut heavily by the current US administration, further weakening healthcare provision.

To make matters worse, a long running conflict in the province has seen an upsurge in violence since December 2025, with fighting between the Convention for the Popular Revolution and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo leading to at least 40 people being killed and around 100 000 being displaced. The Convention for the Popular Revolution is one of several rebel groups active in the region, and has been accused by the Congolese Government of forcibly recruiting child soldiers and being a front for the Ugandan and/or Rwandan governments to exploit the regions mineral wealth. Nevertheless, the Convention for the Popular Revolution has sometimes worked alongside the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ugandan Army to fight against other groups, notably the Allied Democratic Forces, a group thought to be allied to Islamic State.

Unloading supplies for the isolation and treatment tents at the Bunia Referral Hospital, Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 2026. World Health Organization.

All of this has made it extremely difficult to implement effective track-and-trace and treatment programs to contain the Bundibugyo Virus outbreak. To complicate things further, a disinformation campaign appears to have been circulating on social media, adding to the distrust of outsiders and officialdom in general which is prevalent in the local population, something that has led to attacks on healthcare workers and facilities. Local people have reportedly set fire to two treatment centres in which patients were being treated in isolation, following a dispute over a safe burials program implemented to prevent the spread of the disease. This involves the burial of the deceased by healthcare workers with a minimal number of people present, and goes against local customs of large funerals and ritually washing the dead by relatives. 

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The potential for a major El Niño event developing soon, and for 2026 to be the hottest year on record.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation system is a major driver of the Earth's climate variations, driven by fluctuations in the temperature in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean. This has two phases, El Niño, in which surface temperatures are high, and La Niña, in which they are low (although the Pacific is not always in one of these phases, there are neutral periods when neither occurs). The impacts of these oscillations are complex, but overall, the El Niño phase is associated with warmer global temperatures, while the La Niña phase is associated with cooler global temperatures. The warmest year on record, 2024, was associated with an El Niño phase.

In March 2026, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts began issuing warnings that the Pacific Ocean might be going to enter an El Niño phase in 2026. This is in some ways surprising, the ocean was still in a La Niña phase in March, and predictions made this early in the year are not usually considered reliable. Furthermore, less than three years had passed since the most recent El Niño phase, which is in itself unusual.

Map of sea-surface temperature anomaly issued in March 2026 and valid for June, July and August. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

However, the El Niño Southern Oscillation system does not operate in isolation. The temperatures in the Pacific surface waters during the 2015-2016 and 2024 El Niño events were significantly higher than the 1997-98 event, which was the warmest event of the 20th century. Furthermore, the La Niña phases bracketing these 21st century events were much less extreme than those around the 1997-98 event (that is the surface waters did not cool as much), so these events were much less extreme in the sense that they did not drift as far from the average sea surface temperatures over a longer period. In fact, the three most recent La Niña phases have been accompanied by Pacific Ocean temperatures warmer than during the 1997-98 El Niño event.

On 15 April 2026 the UK's Met Office issued a warning that there was likely to be a severe El Niño event in 2026-2027, and on 14 May, the Climate Prediction Service of the United States National Weather Service also issued a press release warning that their predictions gave an 82% chance of the Pacific entering an El Niño phase between May and July 2026, with a 96% chance that El Niño conditions would exist between December 2026 and February 2027.

The reason behind the earliness and severity of these warnings is based upon a change in how predictions are made. Previously, predictions have been made upon the temperature of the surface of the ocean, which has not allowed for very long predictions. However, recent research has shown that a much more accurate, and longer-term, prediction can be made if the temperature of the top 300 m is used. 

In March 2026, the average temperature for the top 300 m of water in the central Pacific was already 1.0°C above baseline temperatures. This in itself is consistent with an El Niño, or even super El Niño event (an event, such as that in 1997-98, in which the surface waters of the Pacific are not just exceptionally warm, but at least 2.0°C warmer than the recent average sea temperatures). In the first week of April the temperature of these waters continued to rise sharply, reaching 1.6°C above baseline temperatures.

This has the potential to have a profound impact on the global average temperature. Predictions already suggested 2026 would be a hot year, with a 62% chance of being one of the four hottest years on record, and a 19% chance of being the hottest year (i.e. temperatures exceeding those of 2024). It has been suggested that there is a 30% chance of 2026 being the second year in which global average temperatures exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (defined as average temperatures between 1850 and 1900). The sharp increase in the temperature of the waters of the Pacific now makes these predictions look more-or-less inevitable.

An El Niño event has a number of profound affects upon the climate. South America tends to have much higher rainfall during El Niño events, while Indonesia, Australia, and Southeast Asia can suffer severe droughts. In India and Africa, rainfall patterns can be affected in less predictable ways, with some areas suffering high rainfall and flooding while others suffer severe droughts. Tropical storms become less common in the Atlantic, but more frequent in the Pacific. 

This is likely to have implications for food production in many parts of the world, with a combination of droughts and floods triggered by an El Niño event coming at the same time as fertiliser shortages triggered by Iran having closed the Straits of Hormuz in response to the Israeli and US attack earlier this year, making famine events likely. At the same time, the agencies which might provide relief during such events are suffering from a much reduced ability to act following the withdrawal of funding by the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. This is situation is also likely to be impacted by predicted rises in fuel prices, also triggered by the war in the Gulf of Persia, further limiting international agencies ability to respond to any crisis. 

A super El Niño event, starting from a base of record high sea temperatures, which now appears very likely, could have even more severe impacts. The super El Niño event of 1876 triggered a global famine which killed around 50 million people, about 3% of the world's population at that time. On this occasion the El Niño event caused the almost total collapse of the South Asian Monsoon, leading to the worst drought in 800 years, with concurrent droughts across Australia, Southeast Asia, Brazil, and North and Southern Africa (although it is also generally accepted that the high mortality rates in India were driven as much by the policies of the British colonial government as the drought itself).

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Explosion at coal mine in Shanxi Province, China, kills at least 82 people.

At least 82 miners have died in an explosion at a coal mine in Shanxi Province, China, on Saturday 23 May 2026. The incident happened at Liushenyu Coal Mine in Qinyuan County slightly before 7.30 pm local time at which 247 workers were below ground. The majority of those have now been evacuated, with 128 people being treated in hospital, two of whom are described as being in a serious condition and two more still missing. 

Rescue workers arriving at Liushenyu Coal Mine in Shanxi Province, China, following an explosion at a coal mine on 23 May 2026. Zhu Xingxin/China Daily.

Survivors of the incident report seeing a dust plume rather than hearing an explosion, accompanied by a strong sulphurous smell and then many people blacking out. The majority of those killed and injured are reported to have been affected by gas poisoning. 

Coal is formed when buried organic material, principally wood, in heated and pressurised, forcing off hydrogen and oxygen (i.e. water) and leaving more-or-less pure carbon. Methane is formed by the decay of organic material within the coal. There is typically little pore-space within coal, but the methane can be trapped in a liquid form under pressure. Some countries have started to extract this gas as a fuel in its own right. When this pressure is released suddenly, as by mining activity, then the methane turns back to a gas, expanding rapidly causing, an explosion. This is a bit like the pressure being released on a carbonated drink; the term 'explosion' does not necessarily imply fire in this context, although as methane is flammable this is quite likely.

Chinese authorities have dispatched six specialist rescue teams to the site, with a total of 345 personnel and a number of specialist robots capable of entering mines inaccessible to Human rescuers. These have found flooding in the area where the explosion took place, as well as high carbon monoxide levels throughout much of the mine. They have also found that the blueprints of the mine provided by its owners, the Tongzhou Group, do not match the actual layout. 

The mine's management, which have previously been given penalties for administrative failures twice in 2025, are now under investigation for a number of breaches, including developing new coal faces which were not on plans, falsification of health and safety documentation, poor employee records, and illegal uses of subcontractors. Four other mines operated by the Tongzhou Group have been temporarily closed, and mines across Shanxi Province are being subjected to emergency inspections.

Historically, the Chinese coal industry has been beset by safety problems, at least in part due to the rapid expansion of the industry to fuel the country's industrialisation. In the past two decades a major drive towards introducing safety measures combined with a switch away from coal towards renewable sources of energy has reduced the number of such incidents. However, coal is still a major industry, with about a quarter of the coal extracted in China coming from Shanxi Province, and safety clearly still remains a problem.

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Algeria, Australia, and Tunisia have all eliminated Trachoma as a public health risk.

On 23 April 2026 the World Health Organization published a press release confirming that Algeria had eliminated Trachoma, a transmissible Bacterial disease which is thew world's leading infectious cause of blindness. On 29 April a second press release confirmed that Australia had eliminated the disease. On 14 May a third press release confirmed that Trachoma had also been eliminated in Tunisia. This brings the number of countries which have eliminated the once widespread tropical disease to 31. Countries where it has previously been eliminated are: Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Iran, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Togo, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

Regular examination of eyes at risk can help to reduce the incidence of communicable diseases such as Trachoma. Lily Solomon/World Health Organization.

Trachoma is caused by the Bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, and spread through contact with mucus emitted from the eyes and nose during infection, and can be spread by Flies. Infections are most common among children, and the disease can spread rapidly in overcrowded environments, particularly where sanitation is poor and access to clean water is limited. The Bacterium infects the inside of the eyelid, causing a roughening which can in turn lead to damage to the surface of the eye. Eventually the disease can lead to the eyelids turning inwards, blinding the patient. Infections are generally fought off fairly quickly, particularly in adults, but having been infected does not offer protection against future infections, and the damage caused by each infection is cumulative. Chlamydia trachomatis is vulnerable to the antibiotics azithromycin and tetracycline.

McCoy cell monolayer micrograph reveals a number of intracellular Chlamydia trachomatis inclusion bodies; Magnified 200 times. The intracellular inclusion body represents the replication phase of the Chlamydia spp. organisms, whereupon, the reorganised reticulate body multiplies through binary fission into 100-500 new reticulate bodies, which mature into elementary bodies. Eugene Arum/Norman Jacobs/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons.

All three countries have been waging public health campaigns against Trachoma for many decades, with recent successes in eliminating infections attributed to the adoption of the World Health Organization's 'SAFE' strategy on the disease. This relies on four pillars, Surgery, which is used to save patients sight before it is lost in advances cases, Antibiotics, which are administered en masse during outbreaks, Facial cleanliness, in which large scale public health campaigns promote personal hygeine as a way to stop the spread of the disease, and Environment, in which access to clean water and good sanitation is improved. 

Mural promoting facial cleanliness to eliminate Trachoma, at Warburton in Western Australia. Minum Barreng: Indigenous Eye Health Unit/University of Melbourne/World Health Organization.

Both Algeria and Tunisia have historically had particular problems with Trachoma in their more arid southern provinces, where access to clean water has been limited. It has been estimated that in the early and mid twentieth centuries, as much as half of the population of southern Tunisia may have been affected by the disease.

World Health Organization consultant, Mario Tarizzo, prepares to take an eye smear from a school child at Srendi on the Tunisian island of Djerba. The World Health Organization has supported long-standing efforts in Tunisia to eliminate Trachoma, a disease of the eye that can cause blindness if left untreated. Eric Schwab/World Health Organization.

In Australia Trachoma was eliminated in much of the country decades ago, but has persisted in many remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where access to both clean water and healthcare facilities can be very limited, and not everyone speaks English as a first language. In recent years bringing healthcare to such communities has been driven by a network of Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, which are better able to understand the healthcare needs of indigenous Australians, and deliver solutions in a culturally appropriate way.

Trachoma is one of 21 Neglected Tropical Diseases associated with devastating health, social and economic consequences outlined in the Roadmap proposed by the World Health Organization's Executive Board at its 146th session in February 2020, and adopted by the Seventy-third World Health Assembly in November 2020. This Roadmap aims to control, eliminate, or eradicate all of these diseases by 2021, in line with the United Nation's third Sustainable Development Goal: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. The elimination of Trachoma in Algeria and Tunisia makes then the 62nd and 63rd countries to have eliminated at least one Neglected Tropical Disease since the adoption of the Roadmap.

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At least 111 dead as high winds and dust storms sweep across Uttar Pradesh.

At least 111 people have died and another 59 have been injured as high winds and dust storms swept across Uttar Pradesh State in northern India on Wednesday 13 May 2026. The storms also damaged at least 227 homes and killed at least 200 head of livestock. Most of the injuries and fatalities have been attributed to falling trees, and in some cases walls. One man working on installing a metal roof on a warehouse building was thrown 15 m into the air when the winds tore the roof away, but miraculously survived. 

Roofing contractor Nanhe Miyan was thrown more than 15 m into the air when a section of roof he was working on came away amid high winds in Uttar Pradesh on 13 May 2026, but escaped with minor injuries. Firstpost.

High winds and dust storms are common in Uttar Pradesh in the summer months of April, May and June, when high temperatures over the arid areas to the southwest, which include the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, the Cholistan Desert of the Punjab, and the Kharan Desert of Baluchistan, can reach 45-50°C, resulting in a hot dry wind known as the 'loo' which blows over the North Indian Plain. This combination of heat and dry winds has a desiccating effect, causing trees to lose their leaves and much of the vegetation of the area to dry out and die (before blooming again with the onset of the monsoon season). It can also be very harmful to Humans, with deaths from heatstroke most common at this time of year.

However, this week's storm was a more exceptional event, bringing with it winds of over 160 km per hour, as well as heavy rainfall, something not usually associated with the loo winds. This appears to have been brought about by the interplay between a the loo wind and two cool cyclonic systems, one of which was located over northern Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, the other over Haryana and the northwestern part of Uttar Pradesh, according to the India Meteorological Department. The cyclonic systems had already been drawing in warm moist air from the Bay of Bengal, and when they encountered the loo winds, the moist air was forced upwards, rapidly forming cumulonimbus (thunderhead) clouds, while the dryer air wash pushed into a downdraught, leading to much higher wind speeds. 

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