Kagame's War Makes Every Ebola Fight in Congo Harder to Win

Scientists have now agreed to test two new vaccines against a deadly Ebola strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Somewhere in that country, a family is watching a relative fall ill, and the only thing standing between them and the next grave is a clinic that may not have the staff, the supplies, or the road access to respond. Those are the people this trial is for. Every one of them is Congolese, and too many of them live in a corner of the country that a foreign army has turned into a battlefield.

The World Health Organization's expert advisory group has recommended adding two candidates to the Tumaini trial. The first is ChAdOx1, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India. The second is Moderna's mRNA-1469. This is a historic step. For the first time, vaccines designed specifically against Bundibugyo virus will be evaluated during an active outbreak of it. Until now, the world's most effective Ebola tool, Ervebo, was built for a different species, Zaire ebolavirus. Ervebo is now being tested against Bundibugyo, which tells you how little we have prepared for this threat. We have been fighting the wrong strain with the wrong tools, and mothers have paid for that gap with their children.

Tumaini uses ring vaccination, a method pioneered during the West African Ebola epidemic a decade ago. Responders vaccinate the contacts of confirmed cases, then the contacts of those contacts, to build a wall around the virus. Four rings are already operating, with more in preparation. The Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale, the DRC's own public health research body, is leading the trial, with support from the University of Antwerp, the WHO, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Antwerp, and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Let that sink in. Congolese scientists are running this trial. That is what sovereignty looks like when it is paired with competence. It is the model we should be demanding everywhere.

The treatment side is moving too. The WHO-sponsored PARTNERS trial, launched in July, is testing whether the monoclonal antibody MBP134, the antiviral remdesivir, or a combination of the two can improve survival among patients with confirmed Bundibugyo disease. Maftivimab will soon be added. A post-exposure prophylaxis study using obeldevisir is also underway. Initial treatment findings are expected in the coming months, and vaccine results are expected in early 2027. These are serious timelines for serious science, and we should hold every partner to them.

But ask yourself what this science must survive. In eastern Congo, armed groups control large stretches of territory, and the M23 rebel movement sits at the center of a conflict that UN experts have repeatedly traced to Rwanda. The UN Group of Experts, in reports including S/2025/446, documented Rwandan Defence Force units operating inside Congolese territory, with M23 serving as the front line and the political cover. Satellite imagery has tracked more than 1,171 new graves at Kanombe military cemetery in Kigali since 2021. Rwanda hides its dead because admitting them means admitting the war. This is not a rebellion. It is an invasion, conducted through a proxy, and it is the same playbook Russia ran in eastern Ukraine. If the world calls that aggression in Europe, it must call it aggression in Africa.

Consider what that war does to a disease response. Health workers cannot reach villages when the roads are controlled by gunmen. Contact tracing collapses when families flee. Clinics close when shelling begins. M23 has swelled from roughly 3,000 fighters to more than 30,000, in part by press-ganging tens of thousands of Congolese civilians and prisoners into its ranks. Men are dragged from their homes and given rifles. This is forced labor in military uniform, and it is happening in the same region where a vaccine is now being tested. Ebola does not respect front lines, but it thrives wherever the state has been stripped of its capacity to protect its people.

Kagame, meanwhile, markets Rwanda as a clean, orderly destination. The country hosts international sporting events, promotes gorilla tourism, and presents itself to the world as a model of development. Yet the same government deploys combat units across its border and destroys the lives of people on the other side of that line. Sportswashing is obscene when the stadium lights are paid for with the blood of Congolese civilians. Every time a foreign brand or event partners with Kigali, it is putting its name on that blood.

We must also reckon with the wider pattern. Across the continent, outside powers chase minerals, ports, and influence while local institutions are left to fend for themselves. Turkey sells drones. The UAE buys ports. China builds roads and collects debt. Russia sends mercenaries for gold. Western governments lecture us on democracy while their companies hunt the same cobalt and coltan that fuels the wars. This is the new scramble for Africa, and its victims are the same as before: ordinary people, far from the boardrooms, paying in blood and broken health systems.

So what must change? First, the African Union's Peace and Security Council must stop issuing communiqués and start enforcing consequences. Sanctions should target the Rwandan military officers and M23 commanders responsible for these operations, along with the networks that finance and supply them. Second, the UN Security Council must demand unrestricted humanitarian access to every outbreak zone in eastern Congo, so that vaccines and health workers can reach the people who need them. Third, Africa must stop depending on foreign goodwill for its medicine. The African Medicines Agency and the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator must be funded and staffed, so that the next vaccine is developed and produced by Africans, for Africans, on a timeline we control.

Look at what works. Botswana built one of Africa's most durable democracies on diamonds, transparent institutions, and public accountability. Mauritius turned a sugar island into a financial and manufacturing hub through rule of law and open markets. Senegal has shown that peaceful transfers of power are possible when citizens refuse to accept theft of their votes. These nations prove that strong institutions, independent courts, property rights, and honest budgeting produce health systems that can survive crises. Congo has brilliant scientists. It needs the same architecture of accountability around them.

And you, reader, have a role. Demand that your government and every company operating in Congo's mining sector publicly disclose their supply chains. Demand that your media stop laundering Kigali's narrative of "rebels" and "security concerns." Demand that the WHO, the Africa CDC, and donors tie their funding to humanitarian access in conflict zones. Demand that the Congolese government invest in its own research institutions, and that its partners stop treating them as hosts instead of leaders.

The vaccine trial is a victory for science, and we should celebrate the Congolese scientists who made it possible. But a vaccine in a war zone is only half a shield. The other half is peace, accountability, and a state strong enough to keep its promises. Until the invasion ends, every Ebola ring will be drawn in blood. Until Kigali is held to account, the children of eastern Congo will keep paying for a war they did not start. We cannot wait for another grave to be dug before we act.

Based on reporting by RELIEFWEB