DRC Ebola Outbreak Is Second-largest on Record, With 3,973 Cases and 1,801 Deaths

The outbreak, first reported on 15 May, may have been spreading since January. Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday that cases had topped 4,000, making it the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record. It has eight times more cases and six times more deaths than 11 weeks into the 2014-18 West Africa outbreak.

Kaseya said he and WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus planned studies to check if the virus is mutating, as the severity of this Bundibugyo outbreak is unprecedented. More than two-thirds of deaths are occurring in the community, and in an MSF treatment centre in Bunia, 90% of admitted patients were not on contact lists, indicating high untracked transmission. Contact tracing is insufficient, with only 10 contacts per patient versus an expected 40. The outbreak is centred in Ituri province but has spread to Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Haut-Uele and Tshopo, with 20 cases in Uganda before it was controlled.