The Ebola outbreak declared last May in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has already surpassed 9,500 infections and 4,600 deaths, according to the most recent balance released by health authorities, in a context of full expansion of the virus, which a day earlier had already spread to an eighth province of the country.
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has indicated in its bulletin that to date, 9,552 infections and 4,602 deaths have been detected, including 97 cases and 41 deaths in the previous 24 hours, with a fatality rate of 48.2% since the outbreak began more than five months ago.
The agency has also specified that 2,550 patients have been discharged after overcoming the disease, while 937 remain hospitalized or in isolation. The contact tracing percentage stands at 76.9%, an indicator that has been declining in recent weeks.
INSP has emphasized that the province of Ituri --one of the affected, along with North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, Tshopo, South Ubangi, and North Ubangi-- remains the epicenter with 72.9% of total infections, although in the last day it accounts for only 43.3% of cases, partly due to the relative control of the situation in the area and the spread of the outbreak to other parts of the country.
The outbreak in the DRC is already the deadliest recorded in the African nation, surpassing the one declared between 2018 and 2020, and projections suggest it could exceed the one recorded between 2014 and 2016 in West Africa, which left 28,616 cases and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
For its part, the Department of the United States has recommended its citizens to "reconsider traveling" to Kenya in an alert issued due to the "health risks" arising from the confirmation of eight cases of Ebola in the country in recent days, linked to the outbreak in the DRC.
Kenya has become the second country --aside from the DRC-- to confirm imported cases of Ebola linked to the aforementioned outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccine or treatment.
This Tuesday afternoon, the Kenyan Ministry of Health has already raised the identified cases to nine, all members of the same vector, with no risk yet of community transmission. Eight of the patients, the Ministry adds, are showing signs of improvement.
Uganda announced on July 28 that it was free of the virus after confirming two deaths and 20 cases, also related to the situation in the DRC.