The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is spreading at an exceptional rate and has become the country’s largest on record, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.
By Friday, 3,605 Ebola cases had been confirmed across five provinces, according to Congolese authorities. Of those, 1,587 had resulted in death.
The WHO warned that the outbreak is continuing to worsen and is spreading ever more widely. Both the number of recorded infections and the death toll are rising steadily.
The agency said efforts to contain the outbreak are being hampered by insecurity, conflict with rebel groups, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, and deep mistrust of health workers among the population.
Experts also suspect the true number of infections is far higher than the confirmed total. According to the WHO, many people with Ebola are not taken to treatment centres, while families often believe deaths were caused by COVID-19.
Congo’s deadliest previous Ebola outbreak, between 2018 and 2020, killed nearly 2,300 people and recorded 3,500 cases.
The number of confirmed cases passed 2,000 on 15 July, just two months after the outbreak was declared on 15 May. Congo’s seventeenth Ebola outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is currently neither a vaccine nor a treatment.
