The authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have updated this Monday the balance of the Ebola outbreak declared in May, which has already caused more than 4,300 deaths and is approaching 9,000 infections, consolidating itself for months as the deadliest in the history of the country and the second most serious worldwide.
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has detailed in its latest report that so far 8,978 infections and 4,336 fatalities have been confirmed, with 64 new cases and 21 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. These data represent a fatality rate of 48.3%.
The agency has also specified that there are currently 945 people hospitalized or in isolation centers, while 2,356 patients have been discharged after recovering from the disease. Likewise, it has indicated that the percentage of contacts under surveillance reaches 81%.
The Ebola outbreak in the DRC has already become the deadliest in the country, surpassing that recorded between 2018 and 2020, and forecasts suggest that it could exceed the one that devastated West Africa between 2014 and 2016, which left 28,616 infections and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).