Ebola cases in DR Congo pass 11,000, with 5,387 deaths

What the report says

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing the country’s largest Ebola outbreak, with government data cited by Al Jazeera showing 11,042 confirmed cases and at least 5,387 deaths as of Tuesday. The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, and officials have struggled to slow its spread across the country.

Al Jazeera reported that eight of the DRC’s 26 provinces have been affected. Many deaths have occurred outside treatment centres, and delayed detection, ongoing conflict and overstretched health services have made containment harder. The report said these conditions helped the disease spread more quickly than in previous outbreaks.

The current outbreak is now the second-largest and second-deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, behind the 2014-2016 West African epidemic. That earlier crisis infected more than 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000, according to widely cited public health records. Because no vaccine or treatment has been developed specifically for the Bundibugyo strain, authorities have fewer tools to stop transmission.

Al Jazeera also noted that the World Health Organization approved clinical trials of two new Ebola vaccines earlier this month, with results expected in early 2027. The outbreak’s spread across East, Central and West Africa has also made it the widest geographic Ebola outbreak on the continent to date.