“The test has proven effective in Uganda. It is designed to detect genetic variants of the Ebola virus, specifically the Bundibugyo strain,” Popova stated during Thursday’s sessions of the Russia-Africa forum, held at Moscow’s iconic Gostiny Dvor. On May 17, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring Uganda as a “public health emergency of international concern.”

On August 18, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the current epidemic caused by the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in the DRC is spreading at an “unprecedented speed”—faster than any previous outbreak—and ranks as the second-largest epidemic in terms of case numbers since records began.

Ebola, first detected in the DRC in 1976, is a serious infectious disease transmitted to humans by wild animals; it spreads between people through contact with the blood, bodily fluids, or other secretions of infected individuals.

West Africa experienced an Ebola epidemic in 2015 that primarily affected Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. According to the WHO, approximately 28,600 people were infected during that outbreak, and more than 11,300 died.

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