The International Council of Nurses (ICN), the largest organization representing the nursing profession globally, has urgently called on Congolese authorities to compensate and protect healthcare workers battling the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The DR Congo declared its 17th Ebola outbreak on May 15. Three months into the response, the country’s already underfunded health system is struggling to contain the virus, which continues to spread rapidly.

“We cannot fight Ebola without paying those on the front lines,” emphasized Howard Catton, CEO of the ICN, which represents over 140 national nursing associations and more than 30 million nurses worldwide. “Nurses and healthcare workers risk their lives daily to protect communities, often at great personal cost, yet months into this crisis, many remain unpaid.”

In a formal letter to DR Congo’s Health Minister Roger Kamba, the ICN demanded immediate action to ensure that nurses and other frontline health workers receive overdue salaries and risk allowances. According to the council, many healthcare professionals have not been paid for two to three months.

“This situation demands urgent political leadership and direct intervention,” Catton stressed. “Our message is clear: pay health workers what they are owed, ensure regular payments moving forward, and provide the protections they need to do their jobs safely.”

Beyond immediate salary and risk allowance payments, the ICN is urging authorities to guarantee regular compensation in the future and provide essential protections, including adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), insurance coverage, risk allowances, and other critical safeguards.

The current Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has already claimed over 2,128 lives and infected 4,566 people within just three months—figures that surpass the first three months of the West African Ebola epidemic (2014–2016), according to Africa CDC data. This marks the second-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded, and it is spreading faster than any previous one.

“This outbreak is on track to surpass even the devastating West Africa epidemic of 2014–2016,” warned World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday. The Africa CDC reports that within three months, DR Congo has recorded seven times more cases and five times more deaths than during the same period in the West African outbreak.

Of the $518 million required for the joint preparedness and response plan launched in early June by the Africa CDC and WHO, only $264 million has been mobilized to date. No specific vaccine or treatment is currently available for the Bundibugyo Ebola variant driving this outbreak.

In the absence of a specific vaccine, the WHO has called for a clinical trial using the Ervebo vaccine, which is approved for the Zaire strain of the virus. “We are finalizing the protocol for submission to DR Congo’s regulatory authorities,” said Vasee Moorthy, head of WHO’s Research & Development program, on Wednesday.