The health authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have confirmed that the Ebola outbreak that is shaking the country has become the second deadliest in history after exceeding 2,000 confirmed deaths.
The latest official data shows a total of 4,945 confirmed cases and 2,325 deaths in the African country. In this way, the figure exceeds the previous major outbreak that hit the east of the DRC between 2018 and 2020, which left 2,299 deaths and 3,481 infections.
Despite the seriousness of this scenario, the figure still remains far from the worst outbreak in history: the great epidemic recorded between 2014 and 2016 in West Africa, which resulted in more than 11,000 deaths and 28,000 cases.
The fastest growing epidemic
However, the epidemic currently ravaging the country is the one with the most accelerated rate of spread since the outbreak was declared, compared to any emergency prior to this virus.
This speed of infections raises fears that it could approach the figures recorded in West Africa, as warned by the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to the latest bulletin shared by the National Institute of Public Health of the DRC, the fatality rate stands at 47%.
Of the confirmed cases, 730 patients currently remain hospitalized in isolation, while 1,040 people have managed to recover from the disease. This is the seventeenth Ebola epidemic that the DRC has suffered, but it is already the deadliest and with the highest number of infections recorded within its borders.
Affected provinces and transmission of the virus
The focus of the outbreak is located in six provinces: Ituri, the epicenter of the emergency, North Kivu, Haut-Uélé (east) and Tshopo (center-north), as well as Bas-Uélé (north), where authorities confirmed the first fatality last week. On the contrary, in South Kivu 80 days have passed without any new infection being diagnosed.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with body fluids of infected people or animals, and causes a severe hemorrhagic fever accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding.
