Growing Bioweapon Misinformation in Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo) suffered from the onset of a ‘mysterious disease’ between 24 October and 5 December 2024, which was suspected to be malaria, as its impact was exacerbated due to malnutrition. More recently, since October 2025, Congo has also been facing an Ebola outbreak. The ongoing Rwandan-Congo conflict has severely affected Congo’s ability to treat local populations and, therefore, has aggravated the concurrent disease outbreaks in the country.

Geopolitical Unrest and Misinformation in Congo

The Rwandan-Congo conflict should have ended in June 2025, when Congo signed a peace agreement in Washington, brokered by the United States (US) and Qatar, requiring Rwanda and Congo to cease support for any armed groups and to desist from acts of aggression.

Unfortunately, the conflict continues to affect Congo as a result of distrust, ineffective execution, and the exclusion of the M23—a rebel group in Congo, supported by the Rwandan government—from the peace accord. Just as the lack of trust undermines peace agreements, it also threatens the credibility of Congo’s health institutions. This sense of distrust is not unique to the Rwanda-Congo conflict. In West Africa, too, between 2012 and 2014, when the Ebola outbreak was peaking, the distrust in health infrastructure resulted in community-level resistance and delayed containment of outbreaks due to slower reporting.

This lack of trust has now been weaponised by global powers. Russia, along with its onslaught on Ukraine, began deploying misinformation on alleged biological weapons and reduced biosafety in Africa, often blaming the US for the same.  In October 2023,  Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov claimed incorrectly that the US had relocated its research and development on biological weapons from Ukraine to African countries, including the DRC, among others. While this claim was discredited by the US State Department’s Global Engagement Centre (GEC), this geopolitical row poses a very tangible threat to public health, humanitarian trust, and the international biosecurity framework.

Unsubstantiated claims, in addition to endangering international partnerships in global health, exacerbate local suspicion and lead vulnerable populations to fear, resist, or reject the very institutions attempting to safeguard them.

Usually, international biosecurity focuses on systems and treaties, but the frontlines of biosecurity are deeply human. Labs like the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) provide crucial early warning mechanisms, track outbreaks, develop diagnostic tests, and support vaccination efforts. When misinformation calls into question the legitimacy of labs, health workers are attacked, researchers are threatened, and communities withdraw from care. In nations such as the DRC, the Ebola, COVID-19, and Mpox outbreaks have revealed recurring weak points. Discrediting labs like the INRB, as was seen in the misinformation comments made, will endanger lives.

The risk is in how these misinformation campaigns progressively weaken confidence in key medical facilities and US-supported health programmes. In a country still grappling with the Rwandan-Congo war, where crises hurt women and children disproportionately, confidence is tenuous to begin with. In such an outbreak-prone region as Congo, any additional erosion of trust in healthcare workers or public health infrastructure can prove disastrous. Unsubstantiated claims, in addition to endangering international partnerships in global health, exacerbate local suspicion and lead vulnerable populations to fear, resist, or reject the very institutions attempting to safeguard them. By disseminating misinformation regarding “bioweapon labs" rather than genuine/verified information, robust infrastructure, and community mobilisation, such stories have the potential to commit the same catastrophic errors of West Africa's Ebola outbreak, where suspicion hindered containment and cost thousands of lives.

Reducing Humanitarianism at Risk

At the international level, these allegations threaten the existing norms supporting biosecurity collaboration. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the production and use of biological weapons and fosters transparency in biological science. However, the BWC has weak enforcement provisions that allow accusations without inquiry and compliance without verification. This normative gap is being exploited. When a state can accuse another state of building bioweapons with impunity, or when disease surveillance work is portrayed as experimentation, it undermines the very values of trust and cooperation that international biosecurity is founded upon.

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the production and use of biological weapons and fosters transparency in biological science.

At its very centre, biosecurity is not merely a study of pathogens in a vacuum but a matter of safeguarding people against the misuse, mishandling, or weaponisation of biology. That requires both investments in physical laboratory facilities or surveillance technology, and in community trust, ethical governance, and humanitarian principles. To maintain both humanitarian security and international security, the response needs to be multi-faceted:

1. Internationally, the BWC must give more priority to accountability. Public allegations must warrant immediate confirmation and follow-up investigation to prevent biosecurity from becoming an instrument of disinformation.
2. There is a need to tighten verification mechanisms under the BWC. The convention does not currently have a binding inspection or peer-review regime. If the BWC is also enhanced to add annual verification, unfounded accusations will be more easily controlled. Domestically, it is important to enhance transparency in all health and research activities. Research laboratories such as the INRB that handle pathogens should publicly report all safety audits, engage in community outreach initiatives, and maintain open funding streams for global partnerships. Such funding organisations should also be made accountable for regular third-party audits. Again, the BWC can mandate such audits at a global level.
3. Local populations must be informed and engaged with. Biosafety encompasses not only biosciences but also bioethics. People living near research institutes need to be informed, educated, and consulted on matters that will affect them. Local governments and health institutions must collaborate to combat misinformation
4. Central governments must invest in science diplomacy. Trusted communicators need to explain what labs do and why they matter in a way that is neither technical nor inaccessible, but accessible and prioritising human health and safety. Such communicators must collaborate both locally and globally to ensure that information on health, treatment and outbreaks is standardised and reaches the last mile.

The dissemination of false information about bioweapons has widened rifts and endangered public health in the DRC, where health systems are already under stress from years of instability and frequent outbreaks.

Conclusion

Conflict areas often disproportionately affect the already vulnerable, impacting first their trust and then their physical safety. The dissemination of false information about bioweapons has widened rifts and endangered public health in the DRC, where health systems are already under stress from years of instability and frequent outbreaks. In addition to endangering lives, the decline in confidence in medical facilities, labs, and international partners erodes the underpinnings of global biosecurity. Global frameworks like the BWC and local governments alike must adjust as disinformation becomes a tool of geopolitical manipulation. It is important for both global treaties, like the BWC, which are becoming increasingly outdated, and central governments to focus on the ground realities of such regulations and collaborations. Strengthening verification, improving communication, and centring humanitarian principles are essential steps to ensure that, even amidst conflict, truth and cooperation remain the strongest defences against both disease and deception.

Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology (CSST), Observer Research Foundation.

• International Affairs
• Africa
• USA and Canada
• biological weapons congo
• biological weapons misinformation
• ebola outbreak in Africa
• march 23 movement
• march 23 movement
• rwanda congo conflict
• rwanda congo peace deal
• us supported health programmes congo

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