Uganda restricts travel with Congo over Ebola outbreak.

A port official provides hand soap to passengers arriving on a boat, which traveled on Lake Kivu from Bukavu, at the port, where sanitary measures had been taken in response to the Ebola outbreak, in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Thursday, May 21, 2026. (Arlette Bashizi/The New York Times)

By LYNSEY CHUTEL and MATTHEW MPOKE BIGG

Uganda will tightly restrict travel to and from Congo because of an Ebola outbreak, Ugandan officials announced Thursday, as health workers in the region rush to stop the virus from spreading.

Uganda’s Health Ministry said that all flights to and from Congo would be temporarily suspended and that the measure would take effect in 48 hours.

The ministry also said that Uganda was temporarily suspending all cross-border travel with Congo on ferries, buses and other forms of public transportation for four weeks. It temporarily suspended cultural celebrations and commemorations “that attract big numbers of participants along the DRC-Uganda Border,” the ministry added.

The Ebola outbreak has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. In the six days since the outbreak was declared, the number of suspected infections has risen to nearly 600, including 139 deaths, according to the WHO.

The Ugandan authorities’ announcement came as the virus appeared to spread to a third province in Congo that is far from the center of the outbreak.

The outbreak is centered in Congo’s northeastern Ituri province, and cases have also been reported about 350 miles from there, in Goma, a city in North Kivu province. On Thursday, a 28-year-old was reported to have died from Ebola in South Kivu, a province controlled by M23, a rebel group. M23 said in a statement on social media that lab testing had confirmed the case, and Congo’s central government confirmed it.

The U.S. State Department said this week that it was sending $23 million to Congo and Uganda that would go toward protective equipment and other resources. On Tuesday, it announced that it was funding up to 50 clinics and covering “associated front-line costs” in the two countries as part of a broader response to the outbreak.

The department also said that the treatment centers it was funding would be “rapidly deployed” and were meant to “strengthen outbreak containment.”

The announcement followed criticism of the Trump administration by international health experts, who have argued that cuts to foreign aid and the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development have made it harder for the WHO and countries affected by Ebola to combat the outbreak.

But there was some confusion Thursday about how that aid would be deployed. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which will administer the funding, could not be reached for comment.

Hussein Twaibu, a spokesperson for Congo’s Health Ministry, said Thursday that American and Congolese officials had met Thursday and that the United States had pledged $13 million to help fight the Ebola outbreak. The funding would be used to set up mobile clinics and bolster $20 million that Congo’s government has set aside for its own response, Twaibu said.

But the top civil servant in Uganda’s Ministry of Health, Dr. Diana Atwine, said in an interview that the government was not aware of the pledge. It was not immediately clear whether those $13 million were part of the $23 million previously pledged by the United States.

In Uganda, where two cases have been confirmed, the Health Ministry said Thursday that it had not had any communication with the United States about establishing treatment centers.

“I don’t know the ones they are talking about,” Atwine said. “Maybe that is their future plan.”

The confusion came as countries ramped up efforts to fight the outbreak.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the public health body of the African Union, urged member states to support those efforts. South Africa’s government has pledged $2.5 million. Britain said Thursday that it had set aside 20 million pounds (more than $26 million) to support the WHO and nongovernmental organizations.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Thursday that its volunteers were going door to door among communities in eastern Congo, providing information about the virus.

“Families are also being advised not to touch or wash the bodies of suspected Ebola victims, as this remains one of the most common routes of transmission during outbreaks,” the organization said in a statement. “On the first day of activities, Red Cross volunteers reached 645 families.”

Western Uganda borders Congo’s Ituri province, the center of the outbreak, and many people cross that frontier each day. But Ugandan authorities maintain that their country is safe and prepared to deal with the virus.

In a statement on social platform X on Thursday, the chief government spokesperson, Alan Kasujja, said the only person being treated for the virus in Uganda was a Congolese national. An additional Congolese person had died of Ebola in Uganda after coming to the country for treatment.

“No Ugandan person or person living in Uganda has Ebola,” Kasujja said.

Many tourists undertake treks to look at mountain gorillas in southwestern Uganda, near the borders of Congo and Rwanda. The country’s tourism board said this week that while people should observe standard hygiene practices, Uganda remained “safe, open and welcoming for tourism, business and investment.”