Ebola outbreak in Congo kills thousands, becomes countrys fastest-growing on record

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Ebola outbreak in Congo kills thousands, becomes countrys fastest-growing on record
WHO says Congo Ebola outbreak began months before declaration as cases surge
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The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak has killed 2,011 people out of 4,381 confirmed cases, Congolese officials said on Tuesday. The toll makes it the country’s fastest-growing outbreak on record, with the death count doubling in just three weeks after reaching 1,000 fatalities in nine weeks .
The outbreak, declared on May 15, has spread across five eastern provinces: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uélé and Tshopo. Health authorities believe the virus had been circulating undetected for weeks before the declaration, with a study in the journal *Science* suggesting it was present in Ituri as early as January . The current strain is the rare Bundibugyo variant, which has a case fatality rate of 45.9 percent, according to Congolese health data .
Response efforts have been hampered by armed conflict, poor infrastructure and strikes by health workers protesting unpaid wages, aid workers told France 24. The World Health Organization reported that most new cases are occurring outside monitored contacts, indicating transmission remains uncontrolled . On Friday, WHO vaccine experts recommended a full-scale human trial of the Ervebo vaccine, which is approved for the Zaire strain, to test its potential cross-protection against Bundibugyo .
The outbreak has also reached neighboring Uganda, where 20 cases and two deaths were confirmed before the country declared its outbreak over on July 28 . The WHO has classified the situation as a public health emergency of international concern, warning of a high risk of further spread in sub-Saharan Africa .
This is the DRC’s 17th Ebola outbreak and the second-deadliest in history, trailing only the 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic, which killed 11,310 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone . Sania Nishtar, chief executive of the Gavi vaccine alliance, said the current outbreak is already the largest in the DRC’s history and “could well become the largest outbreak ever” .
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