SA prepared for possible Ebola outbreak: Motsoaledi

Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says South Africa is preparing for the possibility of an Ebola outbreak, despite there being no immediate threat to the country.

The move comes as the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has claimed more than 500 lives, with over 1,500 confirmed cases since the outbreak was declared in May.

The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no approved vaccine.

Motsoaledi says 36 designated hospitals are already on standby,  including 24 public and 12 private facilities, as government ramps up its preparedness measures.

He says the highly infectious nature of Ebola means every country must be prepared.

“The fact that human beings move all over, we prepare ourselves with that assumption that this disease may come to any country, that this Ebola may affect any country. We are preparing, we are choosing hospitals, we are training health workers. It is with that assumption that it might come here, but it might not come also, and anything can happen anytime. That’s why we are not leaving anything to chance.”

The minister says the Department of Health has established specialised teams to oversee hospital readiness, coordinate emergency responses and train healthcare workers through regular simulation exercises.

“We have got three committees. One is called the Hospital Readiness Committee, which has been meeting every week, and it will meet on a daily basis if there is any outbreak.  We’ve got an Incident Management Team, which is chaired by the Director General himself.

“It will also meet every day if we have an outbreak. Then we have got the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Team, which is doing a lot of readiness exercises. We are quite busy.”

The preparations come just a few years after South Africa experienced one of its worst public health emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed more than 102,000 lives and infected over four million people.

Meanwhile, the search for an effective treatment is still underway, with the first patient enrolled in a clinical trial evaluating two potential Ebola treatments.

UN Development Programme Representative in the DRC, Damien Mama says the latest analysis of the outbreak revealed that more people could be plunged into poverty if not quelled.

.@WHO has given emergency use listing to the first molecular diagnostic test for Bundibugyo virus: https://t.co/ZpIUJG7x41 #Ebola

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) July 3, 2026