NAIROBI, Kenya – Amid an ongoing, deadly outbreak of the rare but lethal Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s top public health agency has laid out a clear timeline to deliver the first targeted vaccine and treatment for the virus by the end of 2026. Jean Kaseya, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), confirmed the aggressive development timeline during a Thursday online press briefing with reporters, noting that multiple promising vaccine candidates are already in the pipeline for evaluation. The Bundibugyo Ebola strain, which triggered the current large-scale outbreak in the DRC starting this spring, currently has no globally approved preventative vaccines or specific antiviral treatments, leaving frontline healthcare workers with limited tools to slow transmission or reduce mortality. Kaseya emphasized that both political leadership and technical teams are fully committed to accelerating development, stating that investment is already flowing into both strategic and technical stages of the project to ensure the goal is met. “What we can tell you for sure, by the end of this year, 2026, Africa CDC will make sure that we have a vaccine and medicine against Bundibugyo,” Kaseya told reporters. “Our leaders are ready to invest. We are investing at technical level, at a strategic level, to make sure that (the vaccine) will happen.” The development update comes as Kaseya also confirmed he received recent correspondence from Russia’s Ministry of Health claiming that Russian researchers have already completed development of a vaccine targeting the Bundibugyo strain. A senior Africa CDC team member later clarified that the Russian vaccine candidate is currently designed to target the more common Zaire strain of Ebola, and upcoming technical discussions with Moscow’s Gamaleya National Research Centre will explore the underlying science supporting the candidate’s claimed cross-protection against the Bundibugyo variant. As of the latest briefing, Kaseya reported at least 1,077 suspected cases of Ebola tied to the outbreak, which was formally declared on May 15. That total includes 246 recorded deaths from the virus. Kaseya’s figures are slightly higher than the most recent official count released by the World Health Organization, which has reported 10 confirmed Ebola deaths and 223 suspected fatalities linked to the ongoing outbreak. Public health experts have warned that unregulated cross-border movement in the Great Lakes region and weak healthcare infrastructure in eastern DRC increase the risk of the outbreak spreading beyond national borders, making rapid development of targeted medical countermeasures a top regional priority.