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🇺🇬 Uganda /Health & Science

Conflicts Can Spread Infectious Diseases While Making Outbreaks Harder to Detect

From AllAfrica Uganda · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

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  • Conflicts can spread infectious diseases by damaging healthcare, interrupting essential services, and displacing populations, making detection and containment difficult.
  • A review of WHO outbreak data from 1996-2024 found that reported outbreaks, particularly those linked to collapsed basic services like polio and cholera, were more common during armed conflict.
  • The research suggests that conflict zones are often the least equipped to detect outbreaks, meaning diseases may spread and become visible to the world in areas where the danger is greatest.

The Ebola outbreak that spread from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo into Uganda in May 2026 highlighted a dangerous intersection: conflict zones are fertile ground for infectious diseases, and the violence itself hinders detection and response.

When Médecins Sans Frontières investigated in May 2026, it reported that at least 55 people had died since the beginning of April.

— Médecins Sans FrontièresDescribing the initial findings of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

When Médecins Sans Frontières investigated, they found at least 55 deaths had occurred since early April. By May 17, the WHO declared a public health emergency, but the virus had already been circulating for weeks in a region weakened by fighting. This conflict had damaged clinics, laboratories, and reporting systems crucial for containing the outbreak.

On May 17, the WHO Director-General declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, signalling that countries needed to coordinate their response.

— WHO Director-GeneralThe official declaration of the Ebola outbreak as a global health emergency.

A review of previous research and World Health Organization disease outbreak news from 1996 to 2024 revealed a broader pattern. War damages healthcare, disrupts vaccinations and sanitation, forces people from their homes, and blocks aid workers. These conditions help infectious diseases spread. Violence also makes outbreaks harder to spot, meaning countries may be least able to detect crises precisely where the danger is highest.

Our results therefore show patterns in reported outbreaks, not every outbreak that occurred.

— ResearchersAcknowledging the limitations of the WHO outbreak archive used in the study.

The WHO archive, while not exhaustive, showed that reported polio outbreaks, for instance, became more common during civil wars. This aligns with evidence that conflict reduces vaccination coverage. The naturally occurring wild poliovirus now circulates mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where insecurity obstructs elimination efforts. Rare outbreaks from weakened vaccine viruses also occur when vaccination rates are low, allowing the virus to circulate and mutate.

Even so, they suggest that conflict may affect both how diseases spread and which ones become visible to the wider world.

— ResearchersInterpreting the findings of the study on conflict and disease outbreaks.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by AllAfrica Uganda. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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