Ebola Surges in DR Congo, Killing More Than 1,400
An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surged past 3,200 cases and 1,405 deaths, health authorities say, with around a thousand new infections in the past ten days. The outbreak, the country’s seventeenth, has spread across five provinces, with the eastern Ituri region accounting for the bulk of cases. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for the strain involved.
The Bundibugyo strain behind the outbreak, declared in mid-May, has no licensed vaccine, though Oxford researchers are running experimental trials. Aid agencies are airlifting medics to remote areas, but strikes by unpaid healthcare workers and Congo’s wider conflict have hampered the response. “The real challenge is getting there,” said Hedley Tah of the United Nations’ humanitarian air service. Already among the deadliest Ebola outbreaks on record, the surge has prompted warnings of regional spread. Watch the case trajectory and the pace of the international response.