The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) raised the death toll to 473 and confirmed cases to 1,502 from the Ebola outbreak declared in the east of the country on May 15.
According to the latest bulletin from the DRC Ministry of Communication and Media, with data collected up to July 2, the fatality rate currently stands at 31.5%.
In addition, 628 patients are in “isolation/hospitalization”, and another 213 people have managed to recover from the disease, according to the report released late Friday.
The contact tracing rate stands at 81.8%, and more than 11,360 contacts are being followed up.
“Care, laboratory and community mobilization capacities continue to be strengthened, especially in Ituri,” the ministry added.
The outbreak was officially declared on May 15 in Ituri, a province bordering Uganda and South Sudan and the epicenter of the epidemic, but it expanded to the eastern Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu.
The epidemic also spread to Uganda, where 20 confirmed infections have been detected, including 15 cases that are considered imported from the DRC and among which there are two deaths.
Likewise, the Government of France confirmed that it has detected the first positive case of Ebola virus disease, corresponding to a doctor returning from a mission in the DRC.
The outbreak corresponds to the Bundibugyo strain, whose fatality rate ranges between 30% and 50% and for which there is no authorized vaccine or specific treatment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which considers the risk of expansion of the outbreak in sub-Saharan Africa “high” and “low” on a global scale.
The WHO estimates that the virus began circulating in Ituri about two months before the outbreak was declared and classified the epidemic on May 17 as a “public health emergency of international concern.”
This is already the third worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history to date.
The current outbreak is only behind the one that hit West Africa between 2014 and 2016, which left some 11,000 dead and 28,000 infected; and another that affected eastern Congo between 2018 and 2020 and caused 2,299 deaths and 3,481 cases.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with body fluids of infected people or animals and causes severe hemorrhagic fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding.
