{"id":980695,"date":"2026-08-04T19:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/980695\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T19:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:34:13","slug":"ebola-surges-in-eastern-congo-with-1700-now-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/980695\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola surges in eastern Congo with 1,700 now dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUNIA, Congo (AP) \u2014 Ebola has killed more than 1,700 people in eastern Congo in what has become the fastest-growing outbreak of the disease<\/a>, according to data \u2014 spreading faster than health officials can track and with patient zero still unidentified. <\/p>\n

As of Tuesday, 3,802 cases had been recorded, with 1,707 deaths, the latest government update showed.<\/p>\n

It was not clear when the outbreak will reach its peak, Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said Tuesday during his second visit to the town of Bunia, located near the epicenter of the outbreak in Ituri province. <\/p>\n

Kaseya pointed out that some 60-70% of the new cases were recorded from spreading within a community, not from contact tracing \u2014 a method that traces those who have been in contact with a confirmed case. <\/p>\n

\u201cContact tracing is not working,\u201d said Kaseya, \u201cwe don\u2019t like the trajectory of this outbreak, and it\u2019s already the second largest outbreak (ever) in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was expected to arrive in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, later on Tuesday and would visit Bunia later this week.<\/p>\n

The outbreak, declared on May 15, has been linked to the Bundibugyo virus<\/a> for which there are no approved vaccines<\/a> or treatments. Delays in contact tracing, difficulties accessing affected areas, mistrust from communities, and violence by armed groups and some residents have hampered the response, the Africa CDC has said.<\/p>\n

Two clinical trials for post-exposure prophylaxis drugs are ongoing in Ituri province as well as two separate vaccine trials in the United Kingdom and Canada.<\/p>\n

The outbreak is mostly concentrated in eastern Congo\u2019s remote Ituri province, which accounts for nearly 90% of cases, but cases have also been confirmed in five other provinces, including in one of the country\u2019s largest cities, Kisangani.<\/p>\n

Neighboring Uganda declared itself free of Ebola<\/a> following the discharge of the country\u2019s last patient in mid-June.<\/p>\n

A key challenge is that patient zero has yet to be identified<\/a> in the outbreak while displacement from armed conflict and illegal mining in the region have made it difficult to trace thousands who have come in contact with infected individuals. <\/p>\n

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it was monitoring over 17,000 potential contacts, with nearly 80% of them being seen daily.<\/p>\n

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Mohamed Janabi, WHO\u2019s regional director for Africa, told reporters on Tuesday that the U.N. health agency is now testing over 2,000 samples a day, up from 20 previously.<\/p>\n

On Monday, healthcare workers in the hard-hit town of Mongbwalu issued an ultimatum over unpaid wages saying that \u201cif nothing is done within 24 hours, we will escalate our action.\u201d <\/p>\n

Previously, healthcare workers in Bunia went on strike over<\/a> a lack of pay and dangerous working conditions. The WHO says more than 100 healthcare workers have been infected since the beginning of the outbreak.<\/p>\n

The latest outbreak has killed people<\/a> at a quicker rate than any previous outbreak, including in 2014-2016 when 28,000 cases were reported, of which over 11,000 people died. That outbreak took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

The response is also hampered by a funding gap, attacks on health centers, an ongoing conflict in eastern Congo and mistrust among local communities.<\/p>\n

Enrollment in a highly anticipated study<\/a> of two possible Ebola treatments recently started in Ituri.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUNIA, Congo (AP) \u2014 Ebola has killed more than 1,700 people in eastern Congo in what has become…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":977924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[7779,17993,46861,94169,57,210,9166,328097,113507,67,132,68,26413,107],"class_list":["post-980695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-africa","tag-centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention","tag-disease-outbreaks","tag-ebola-virus","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-health-care-industry","tag-jean-kaseya","tag-kinshasa","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-health-organization","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}