The authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have reported this Friday that the Ebola outbreak declared about six months ago in the east of the country has already exceeded 10,700 cases and 5,200 deaths, in a context of geographic expansion that has sparked alarms internationally.
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has detailed in its latest epidemiological bulletin that to date 10,741 infections and 5,230 deaths from the virus have been recorded, including 73 new cases and 32 deaths in the last 24 hours, which places the case fatality rate at 48.7%.
The agency has added that 1,026 patients remain hospitalized or in isolation in the eight provinces affected by the outbreak, with a contact tracing rate of 82.7%, while 2,888 people have been discharged after having overcome the disease.
This outbreak in the DRC has already become the most lethal the country has suffered, surpassing the one recorded between 2018 and 2020. Projections suggest it could even exceed the one that struck West Africa between 2014 and 2016, which caused 28,616 infections and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
In recent weeks, cases linked to the outbreak in the DRC—originated by the Bundibugyo strain, which has no vaccine and no authorized treatment—have also been detected in Kenya and Nigeria—declared free after evacuating to Switzerland the only patient—after Uganda announced on July 28 that it was free of the virus following the accounting of two deaths and 20 infections.