India and the African Union (AU) on Thursday postponed the India-Africa Forum Summit scheduled for next week in New Delhi, due to the "emerging public health situation" in Africa, India's foreign ministry said, in an apparent reference to the Ebola outbreak. A first Ebola case was confirmed in the DR Congo's rebel-held South Kivu province.
The 2026 India-Africa Forum Summit, scheduled for May 28 to 31, was postponed due to the "evolving health situation in parts of Africa", India's Ministry of External Affairs announced Thursday as health officials in DR Congo tackled an Ebola virus outbreak.
The decision was made in recognition of “the importance of ensuring the full participation and engagement of African leaders and stakeholders, and mindful of the emerging public health situation on the continent", said a joint statement issued by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the African Union.
After discussing the "evolving health situation", India and the AU agreed that it would be "advisable" to hold the summit at a later date, the ministry said. It did not elaborate on the health concerns.
The postponement came as a first Ebola case was confirmed in the DR Congo's South Kivu province, in an area under the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 militia's control, the armed group's spokesman said Thursday.
First case in rebel-held territory
Efforts to get a grip on the latest outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic disease, which the World Health Organization has declared an international emergency, have been hampered by the DRC's long-running conflicts, including between the Congolese army and the AFC/M23.
Having seized swathes of land in the mineral-rich east with Rwanda's help, the AFC/M23 has set up to govern for the long run in areas under its control, installing a parallel administration to the Congolese government.
But the armed group has never had to manage the 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.
According to the AFC/M23 spokesman, tests "confirm a new positive case" from the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu, which fell into the group's hands in February 2025.
But the case involved a "person coming from Kisangani", a major city in the eastern Tshopo province where no Ebola infections from the current outbreak have so far been recorded.
"The person concerned, a compatriot aged 28, unfortunately succumbed to the disease before the diagnosis was confirmed," the spokesman added.
The Congolese authorities were yet to comment on the reported case.
According to the WHO, the latest outbreak in the DR Congo, the 17th to hit the vast central African country of more than 100 million people, is already suspected of having caused 139 deaths out of nearly 600 probable cases.
Split by front lines
Many of the cases have been recorded in the epidemic's epicentre in the DRC's northeastern Ituri province, mostly in hard-to-access areas plagued by the Congolese east's litany of armed groups.
Cases have also been recorded in North Kivu and neighbouring Uganda – but none to date in South Kivu and Tshopo.
Given the difficulties in accessing the areas hit by the epidemic, few samples have been laboratory-tested and figures are based mostly on suspected cases.
Read moreWhat we know about the deadly new Ebola outbreak in DR Congo
Both North and South Kivu are split in two by the front lines dividing the Congolese army from the AFC/M23 armed group and its Rwandan allies.
The airport in North Kivu's provincial capital Goma, which once helped funnel urgently needed aid into the eastern DRC by air, has been shut since the AFC/M23 seized the city in January 2025.
No vaccine or clinical treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus responsible for the current epidemic.
While the WHO believes the risk from the Ebola outbreak is high both in the DRC and the wider central African region, the UN health agency considers the risk of a worldwide pandemic to be "low".
The outbreak comes at a time when humanitarian organisations have seen their budgets slashed, particularly as a result of US aid spending cuts under President Donald Trump.
In one of his first acts on returning to office last year, Trump moved to pull the US out of the WHO, which he had fiercely criticised over its response to the Covid pandemic.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
