Congo Begins Tumaini Ebola Vaccine Trial With First Vaccination in Bunia

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has begun the Tumaini clinical trial against Bundibugyo Ebola, with the first participant vaccinated in Bunia, in Ituri Province, on Friday, October 23, 2026. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, known as CEPI, announced the start of the study, and the World Health Organization confirmed in its October 23 outbreak update that the trial had launched and participants had been enrolled in Bunia.

Tumaini is a Phase 2/3 trial. Its start marks the beginning of a study, not the approval of a vaccine for general use. No vaccine is currently approved against Bundibugyo virus, and the trial will assess safety, immune responses and efficacy before any wider use can be considered.

The first vaccine in the trial

Ervebo is the first vaccine entering the trial. Ervebo is licensed against the Zaire species of Ebola virus, and its effectiveness against Bundibugyo virus in humans remains unknown. That open question is one reason the trial is being run during an active outbreak, with careful measurement of the response in people who receive it.

Candidates developed by Moderna and by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India are expected to join the trial shortly. Their planned inclusion is not confirmed participation at launch, and CEPI presented them as candidates set to enter the same study framework as it develops.

How the trial will work

The trial uses an adaptive platform design to evaluate several candidates within one framework. It assesses them through ring vaccination focused on contacts of confirmed cases and other people at high risk of infection. That approach puts the study where transmission is most likely, among the people closest to known cases.

Professor Hugo Kavunga, the trial principal investigator at the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale, set out the aim in plain terms. "Our priority is to establish which vaccines can safely and effectively protect those at risk," he said, in comments reported from the CEPI statement.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the first vaccinations on social media. "Science gives us hope. Today, in Bunia DRC, the first participants were vaccinated in a new Ebola vaccine trial called Tumaini, which means 'hope' in Swahili," he wrote. "This trial will help us understand whether any of the vaccine candidates designed for Bundibugyo virus work."

An outbreak at record scale

As of October 21, the country had recorded 9,552 cases and 4,602 deaths in the outbreak, according to figures cited in the CEPI statement. CEPI described it as the largest recorded Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak and the second-largest Ebola outbreak to date. The outbreak was declared on May 15, 2026.

AFP reported the wider outbreak totals as more than 9,700 cases and more than 4,600 deaths, and described the outbreak as the DR Congo worst-ever Ebola outbreak. The two sets of figures carry different dates and sources, and both point in the same direction: a large and continuing outbreak in which a working vaccine would give response teams a tool they do not yet have for this virus species.

Xinhua reported the trial launch from Kinshasa on October 23, saying the Phase 2/3 Tumaini trial was launched in Bunia and is funded and supported by CEPI. For families and health workers in Ituri, the next step is the slow work of the study itself, as more participants are enrolled and the first results on safety and immune response are gathered.