The authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have updated the tally of the Ebola outbreak declared in May in the east of the country and now place the death toll at more than 5,100, with almost 10,500 confirmed infections, in a context of growing concern over its rapid spread, which is leading it to become the deadliest recorded globally.
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has detailed in its latest bulletin that to date 5,103 deaths and 10,467 cases have been counted, with 45 deaths and 53 additional infections in the last 24 hours. In this way, the fatality rate of the outbreak remains at 48.8% since its beginning.
The body has also indicated that there are currently 980 people hospitalized or in isolation, while 2,824 patients have managed to overcome the disease and have been discharged. In addition, the contact tracing rate stands at 86.6%.
The outbreak is already spreading across eight provinces --Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, Tshopo, North Ubangi and South Ubangi--, with Ituri as the main focus, concentrating 70.8% of the recorded infections. In these provinces, 67 of the 178 existing health zones have been affected, according to INSP figures.
The current Ebola episode in the DRC is the most serious the country has suffered, above the one that took place between 2018 and 2020, and the projections point to it possibly surpassing the outbreak declared between 2014 and 2016 in West Africa, which caused 28,616 cases and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In recent weeks, cases have also been detected in Kenya and Nigeria --"declared free after evacuating the only patient to Switzerland"-- linked to the Congolese outbreak, after Uganda announced on July 28 that it was free of the virus after registering two deaths and 20 infections.