{"id":6783,"date":"2026-05-21T13:41:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/india-africa-summit-postponed-as-ebola-spreads-to-m23-held-dr-congo-area\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T13:41:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:41:05","slug":"india-africa-summit-postponed-as-ebola-spreads-to-m23-held-dr-congo-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/india-africa-summit-postponed-as-ebola-spreads-to-m23-held-dr-congo-area\/","title":{"rendered":"India-Africa summit postponed as Ebola spreads to M23-held DR Congo area"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>Efforts to stop the latest outbreak of the deadly disease have been hampered by armed conflict in eastern DR Congo and foreign aid cuts.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>The \u2060African Union and India have postponed the \u2060India-Africa \u2060Forum Summit scheduled for next week in \u200cNew Delhi, due to \u2060the \u201cevolving health situation in parts of Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s Ministry of External Affairs made the announcement on Thursday as health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are battling a growing Ebola disease outbreak.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/20\/who-says-600-cases-139-suspected-deaths-in-growing-ebola-outbreak\">WHO says 600 suspected cases, 139 deaths in growing Ebola outbreak<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2026\/5\/21\/dr-congo-cancel-world-cup-training-camp-in-kinshasa-over-ebola-outbreak\">DR Congo cancel World Cup training camp in Kinshasa over Ebola outbreak<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/21\/ebola-outbreak-when-will-a-vaccine-be-developed-for-the-new-strain\">Ebola outbreak: When will a vaccine be developed for the new strain?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>The decision was made in recognition of \u201cthe importance of ensuring the full participation and engagement of African leaders and stakeholders, and mindful of the emerging public health situation on the continent,\u201d the joint statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes as the first Ebola case was confirmed in the DR Congo\u2019s South Kivu province, an area controlled by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2022\/8\/4\/rwanda-backing-m23-rebels-in-drc-un-experts\">Rwanda-backed M23 rebels<\/a>, the group\u2019s spokesman said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Efforts to stop the latest outbreak of the deadly disease, which the World Health Organization has declared <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/17\/who-declares-ebola-outbreak-in-dr-congo-uganda-a-global-health-emergency\">an international emergency<\/a>, have been affected by the DRC\u2019s longrunning conflicts, including between the Congolese army and the M23.<\/p>\n<p>The armed has never had to manage a response to a serious epidemic of a disease like Ebola, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century. M23 said earlier this week that it was committed to working with international partners to contain the outbreak, though the response has been \u200c complicated by the virus\u2019s presence in densely populated urban areas in eastern DRC.<\/p>\n<p>The new case was located \u2060in a rural area near the provincial capital of Bukavu, which fell into M23 hands in February 2025. It marks an expansion of an outbreak that experts believe circulated for about two months in Ituri province, several hundred kilometres to the north, before being detected last week.<\/p>\n<p>According to the M23 spokesman, the case involved a \u201cperson coming from Kisangani\u201d, a major city in the eastern Tshopo province where no Ebola infections from the current outbreak have so far been recorded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe person concerned, a compatriot aged 28, unfortunately succumbed to the disease before the diagnosis was confirmed,\u201d the spokesman added.<\/p>\n<p>The Congolese authorities are yet to comment on the reported case.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/20\/who-says-600-cases-139-suspected-deaths-in-growing-ebola-outbreak\">According to the WHO<\/a>, the latest outbreak in the DRC, the 17th to hit the vast central African country of more than 100 million people, is already suspected of having caused 139 deaths and there are 600 \u2060suspected cases. Two cases have also been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda.<\/p>\n<p>First responders say they lack basic supplies, which some have attributed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/4\/9\/us-led-historic-foreign-aid-decline-in-2025-amid-trump-cuts-oecd\">foreign aid cuts<\/a> by major international donors, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/12\/29\/us-slashes-un-humanitarian-aid-to-2bn-huge-cut-as-trump-demands-reforms\">especially the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Efforts to stop the latest outbreak of the deadly disease have been hampered by armed conflict in eastern DR Congo and foreign aid cuts. The \u2060African Union and India have postponed the \u2060India-Africa \u2060Forum Summit scheduled for next week in \u200cNew Delhi, due to \u2060the \u201cevolving health situation in parts of Africa\u201d. India\u2019s Ministry of &#8230; <a title=\"India-Africa summit postponed as Ebola spreads to M23-held DR Congo area\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/india-africa-summit-postponed-as-ebola-spreads-to-m23-held-dr-congo-area\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about India-Africa summit postponed as Ebola spreads to M23-held DR Congo area\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}