Ebola death toll in DR Congo passes 5,000
What happened
More than 5,000 people have died in Congo's Ebola outbreak, which has infected 10,351 people, according to Congolese Ministry of Health data released Saturday.
The death toll stands at 5,026, a fatality rate of nearly 50%, while 2,788 people have recovered.
The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus and declared in mid-May, is the second deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, behind West Africa's 2014–2016 epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people.
The virus has reached 67 of the country's 178 health zones, and Ituri and North Kivu in the east account for 9,782 confirmed cases and 4,792 deaths.
The Africa CDC says about 80% of new cases come from outside monitored contact chains, and the WHO's Patrick Otim said a third of deaths occur outside treatment centres, before testing.
Attacks on responders have hampered the effort, and Nigeria's disease control centre said Saturday it is testing two suspected cases, while Uganda has reported no new cases since August.
“It is families and communities that have been devastated by this outbreak.”
Arab Times
Summary written by AI from 2 independent sources (Arab Times, BBC) and checked automatically against them for copied text and numbers that are not in the sources. How we work
Open on the live globe →Who reported it
- 2026-10-30 21:41 UTCArab News · arabnews.com ↗
- 2026-10-30 22:47 UTCSky News · news.sky.com ↗
- 2026-10-31 02:51 UTCAl Jazeera · aljazeera.com ↗
- 2026-10-31 05:09 UTCKhaama Press · khaama.com ↗
- 2026-10-31 09:25 UTCArab Times via AP · arabtimesonline.com ↗
- 2026-10-31 15:16 UTCBBC · bbc.co.uk ↗
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