Death toll from Ebola epidemic in Democratic Congo exceeds 4,000, a record high in domestic history

On September 30, 2026, a mobile experimental vehicle used to detect the Ebola virus was parked in Butembo, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. (AP)

As the most severe Ebola epidemic in the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) still cannot be effectively controlled, government data released on the 2nd showed that this Ebola epidemic has claimed more than 4,000 lives.

Official data shows that the death toll from the Ebola epidemic has risen to 4,018, with a total of 8,300 confirmed cases in the seven affected provinces; more than 2,000 infected patients have recovered.

With the death toll surpassing the outbreak from 2018 to 2020, the current outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo Ebola virus has become the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, second only to the West African Ebola outbreak from 2014 to 2016. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has affected Guinea, Liberia and the Lion Rock Country. More than 28,600 people have been infected and more than 11,000 people have died.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's government and the United Nations said last month that there were signs that the spread of Ebola was slowing in Ituri province, where the outbreak first broke out, but it continued to spread rapidly across the east of the country, including in North Kivu, which borders Ituri.

There are more than 20 provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and seven of them are currently affected by the epidemic. Among them, South-Ubangi Province in the northwest became the seventh province to be infected because a man who had traveled to the east of the country died of the epidemic.