New Ebola treatment trial offers hope: 3 questions answered

• On July 2, 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) announced the start of participant enrollment for a new clinical trial investigating targeted treatments for infections with the Bundibugyo virus.
• The Bundibugyo virus caused the latest outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda.
• There is currently no vaccine for this particular viral strain, nor a targeted treatment.
• The trial, currently open for participants in the DRC, will be investigating three potential therapeutic approaches, with the aim of improving survival rates.

On Thursday, July 2, 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the start of participant enrollment for a new clinical trial investigating targeted treatments for infections with the Bundibugyo virus, which caused the latest outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda.

The trial — called “Platform adaptive randomized trial for new and repurposed Filovirus treatments (PARTNERS)” — is sponsored by the WHO and led by the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in the DRC.

PARTNERS is further coordinated by research teams from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and is also supported by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).