Ebola cases in DR Congo surpass 10,000 in fastest-growing outbreak

Nearly half of the people confirmed to have the virus have died in DRC’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record.

Confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have surpassed 10,000 as the outbreak continues to spread across the country and beyond its borders.

Government data released on Tuesday put confirmed cases at 10,060 and deaths at 4,887.

It is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in the country’s history and nearly half of the 10,060 confirmed to have the virus have died, according to data from the DRC’s Ministry of Public Health. That also makes it the deadliest outbreak of the disease in the country’s history.

With cases also mounting outside the DRC, the wider outbreak is also the second-largest and second-deadliest on record, trailing only the 2014-2016 West African epidemic, which saw 28,600 infected and more than 11,000 dead within two years.

About 80 percent of new cases are coming from outside the chains of transmission that health authorities are monitoring.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said at least 95 percent of cases must come from the known contacts of infected people for the outbreak to be considered under control.

The outbreak, declared on May 15, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare Ebola strain for which no vaccine or treatment has been approved. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the first clinical trial for a vaccine had been rolled out.

Healthcare shortages

Five months into the outbreak, responders in the DRC say some treatment centres are overwhelmed, while remote and newly affected areas are short of medical supplies and health workers.

Cases have been recorded in 66 health zones across eight provinces, up from just three in the first days.

Many teams lack adequate vehicles and struggle to persuade families to hand over the sick for treatment and the dead for safe burial. At least half of those who have died were never admitted for treatment.

The outbreak has disrupted routine care such as childhood vaccinations, and maternal deaths doubled in some provinces soon after it was declared.

Strikes over delayed or unpaid wages are common. Last week, Ebola responders in Nia Nia, Ituri province, stopped work over bonuses owed since late August.

Health workers have also come under attack amid public mistrust and frustration with the government’s response.

On Saturday, assailants killed a nurse and seriously injured a colleague as the two responded to a suspected Ebola case in Bafwasende, Tshopo province, the WHO said.

“Everyone working to protect communities from this deadly disease must be able to work in dignity and safety,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

Last month, Marie-Celestin Karondwa, a local politician, was fatally beaten after defending the Ebola response on the radio, his party said.

Cross-border infections

The virus has had a wider cross-border reach than any earlier Ebola epidemic. Governments and international organisations have worked to contain cross-border infections.

In neighbouring Uganda, Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi announced on Sunday that citizens returning from the DRC must quarantine for 21 days at their own expense as a precautionary measure.

The country’s officials have said there are no active infections in the country after recording 20 cases – mostly imported from the DRC – and two deaths over the summer.

Swiss authorities, however, have said a woman married to a Swiss diplomat was infected during a September visit to Uganda.

Last week, she was diagnosed with Ebola while visiting Nigeria – making it the fourth African country impacted by the outbreak. Nigerian officials have responded by instituting heightened screening for the disease at airports. On Monday, the patient was evacuated to Switzerland for treatment.

In Kenya, confirmed infections rose rapidly in October. Twenty contacts of the country’s first patient were released from a mandatory quarantine on Monday after 21 days, while 98 remain under monitoring, the WHO said. Kenya’s tally has since risen to nine confirmed cases, two of them fatal.