The Ebola outbreak declared a little less than six months ago in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is already nearing 11,200 infections and 5,500 deaths, after having become the deadliest recorded in the country and maintaining an evolution that could soon place it among the most lethal in the world.
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has indicated in its latest epidemiological report that, to date, 11,197 cases and 5,471 fatalities have been confirmed, a count in which 83 new infections and 38 deaths are included in the last 24 hours, representing an overall case fatality rate of 48.9%.
Similarly, it has detailed that currently there are 1,676 people hospitalized or in isolation due to the virus, while 3,045 patients have managed to overcome the disease. In addition, the proportion of contacts under monitoring stands at 80.9%, in a context in which the health response is conditioned by insecurity and the lack of resources.
The province of Ituri, one of the eight affected—along with North Kivu, South Kivu, Tshopo, Haut-Uélé, Bas-Uélé, North Ubangi and South Ubangi—continues to be the main focus of the outbreak, as it concentrates 69.3% of the total infections, a percentage that has declined in recent weeks due both to the spread of the virus to other areas and to certain advances in containment efforts in this region of the DRC.