The Ebola outbreak spreading through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has grown into the second-deadliest on record, with the country's health ministry reporting 6,686 confirmed cases and 3,226 deaths as of last week — a fatality rate of nearly 48 percent among confirmed patients.
The latest tally, current through September 6, showed 82 new confirmed cases and 51 additional deaths in a single reporting period, according to figures compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Ituri province remains the epicenter, with 5,365 cases and 2,426 deaths across 28 of its 36 health zones, while the outbreak has also taken hold in North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uélé, Tshopo and Bas-Uélé. Roughly 819 patients are currently hospitalized in isolation, and health workers say 85 percent of identified contacts remain under active monitoring.
A Strain Without an Approved Vaccine
The outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo ebolavirus, a rarer strain than the Zaire species behind most past epidemics and one for which none of the vaccines stockpiled by global health agencies were originally designed. The World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on May 16, just two days after the first case was confirmed in Ituri, and the agency's director-general traveled to Congo soon after to oversee the response. Vaccine trials targeting the Bundibugyo strain specifically began in July, according to the WHO's disease outbreak notices, but no shot has yet been approved for wide deployment.
A parallel outbreak in Uganda, which recorded 20 cases and two deaths between May and June, was declared over on August 25 after 42 days without a new confirmed case. Three cases have reached Europe through medical evacuations of aid workers — two American humanitarian staff sent to Germany and a French health worker — though no sustained transmission has occurred outside Central Africa.
An International Response Still Racing to Catch Up
Governments and donors have pledged more than $150 million toward the response, including $112 million from the United States, £20 million from the United Kingdom and €15 million from the European Union, funding that has gone toward treatment centers, contact tracing and ring vaccination trials. Médecins Sans Frontières has expanded staffing across the affected provinces even as insecurity in parts of eastern Congo continues to complicate access to some communities.
With cases still climbing nearly four months after the emergency declaration, the outbreak has now surpassed most historical epidemics in scale, trailing only the 2014–2016 West African outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people. Health officials say the coming weeks, as ring vaccination trial data emerges and case-finding expands into newly affected health zones, will determine whether the epidemic curve can finally be bent downward.
