The ⁠African Union and India have postponed the ⁠India-Africa ⁠Forum Summit scheduled for next week in ‌New Delhi, due to ⁠the “evolving health situation in parts of Africa”.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs made the announcement on Thursday as health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) battle a growing outbreak of the deadly disease Ebola.

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,” the joint statement said.

The announcement comes as the first Ebola case was confirmed in the DR Congo’s South Kivu province controlled by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, the group’s spokesman said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the latest outbreak in the DRC, the 17th to hit the vast central African country of more than 100 million people, is suspected of already causing 139 deaths, with 600 ⁠suspected cases.

Efforts to stop the latest outbreak, which the WHO has declared an international emergency, have been affected by the DRC’s long running conflicts, including between the Congolese army and the M23.

The armed group has never had to manage a response to a serious epidemic of a disease such as  Ebola, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.

M23 said earlier this week that it was committed to working with international partners to contain the outbreak, though the response has been ‌ complicated by the virus in densely populated urban areas in eastern DRC.

The new case was ⁠in a rural area near the provincial capital of Bukavu, which fell into M23 hands in February 2025. It marks an expansion of an outbreak that experts suspect circulated for about two months in Ituri province, several hundred kilometres to the north, before being detected last week.

According to the M23 spokesman, the Bukavu 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 are yet to comment on the reported case.

Ugandan concerns

The new case in South Kivu was reported as residents in Rwampara, a town at the centre of the outbreak in Ituri, set fire to an Ebola treatment facility on Thursday, after being prevented from taking the body of a local man.

The bodies of Ebola victims remain highly infectious, so health officials insist that burials be conducted by specialised teams wearing protective gear. This sometimes causes tensions with local communities, where traditional funeral practices, which often involve washing the body and large gatherings of mourners, are restricted.

Elsewhere on Thursday, Uganda suspended all public transport to neighbouring DRC.

Ugandan authorities confirmed one Ebola death at the start of the outbreak, saying the case had originated from DRC. The body was repatriated for burial on the same day. On Thursday, a Ugandan health ministry official said that a second suspected case who had entered the country from Ituri had tested negative.

Uganda is ⁠suspending flights to the DRC within the next 48 hours, said government spokesman Alan Kasujja. He confirmed there are no  Ebola ⁠cases ⁠in the ⁠country at the moment.

First responders in DRC say they lack basic supplies, which some have attributed to foreign aid cuts by major international donors, especially the United States.

‌Americans who have been ⁠in ⁠DRC, Uganda or South Sudan ⁠within the last three weeks must only return to the ⁠US through Washington Dulles for enhanced screening, the US State Department said.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Customs and Border Protection are applying enhanced public health screening at Dulles in response to the ⁠outbreak. An Air France flight from Paris to Detroit on Wednesday was ordered to be diverted to Montreal in Canada after a passenger from the DRC boarded “in error”, CBP said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the diversion was to ensure Ebola does not reach the US. “We had a flight ‌last night headed to Detroit that was diverted because we have to protect the American people. So, objective number one is to make sure that Ebola never reaches the United States. Objective number two is do what we can to help the people of DRC and neighbouring countries so it doesn’t spread.”