The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm over what it describes as a ‘catastrophic collision’ of Ebola and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak, now the second deadliest in history, is unfolding in a region already scarred by decades of violence. The WHO’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that the combination of a deadly virus and active war zones creates a perfect storm for a humanitarian disaster.
Health workers are being attacked, treatment centres burned, and communities displaced, making contact tracing and vaccination campaigns nearly impossible. This is not just a health crisis; it is a crisis of digital sovereignty. Without secure, real-time data sharing between aid organisations, local authorities, and field workers, the disease spreads faster than the response.
The international community must act now, not just with troops and vaccines, but with robust, ethical AI models that can predict outbreak clusters and optimise resource allocation. We have the technology. The question is whether we have the will to deploy it before this collision becomes a full-blown catastrophe.
