Ebola Deaths Approach 1,000 in Democratic Republic of Congo Outbreak

Nearly 1,000 people have died from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the country’s health ministry says.

DRC’s National Institute of Public Health said on Wednesday that 999 deaths have been confirmed since the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus began in May.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), two people have also died from the virus in neighbouring Uganda.

DRC’s Health Ministry said that as of Monday, 2,473 cases had been recorded in the latest outbreak. At least 737 patients are currently in isolation and hospitals, it added.

The DRC outbreak was declared on May 15 after several deaths were recorded in the northeastern province of Ituri, where cases remain concentrated. Several cases linked to the DRC’s outbreak were then reported in Uganda.

This outbreak has killed more people at a quicker rate than any Ebola outbreak on record, including the 2013-2016 outbreak that is considered the worst on record with over 11,000 deaths out of at least 28,000 cases. That outbreak took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

Last week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the current outbreak had over the past month “expanded faster than any previous outbreak” of the virus.

Cases of Ebola, which spread through close contact and infected bodily fluids, have also been found in other Congolese provinces outside of Ituri.

‘We must act now’

The WHO’s incident manager for the Bundibugyo strain, Thierno Balde, told reporters on Tuesday that despite plans to ramp up responses to the virus, “the outbreak remains ahead of us and we are still in a phase of catching up”.

Currently, there are no approved vaccines or treatment for the Bundibugyo strain.

Separately, on Tuesday, the head of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) also said the outbreak was “escalating at an alarming pace”.

“We must act now. If we do not stop it today, this will become the worst outbreak the world has ever documented,” Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said in a post on X.

“This is not the time for delay. We must mobilise every available resource, strengthen the response on the ground and stop this outbreak before more lives are lost.”

Kaseya also separately told a conference on Tuesday that he had written to US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and asked him to lift Ebola-related travel restrictions on Uganda since the country has not reported any new infections in about a month.

Uganda’s last Ebola patient was discharged on July 16, beginning a 42-day countdown after which it can be declared free of the virus, according to WHO guidelines.

But the US is restricting entry for all travellers who were recently in DRC and some travellers who recently visited Uganda or South Sudan.