The Democratic Republic of the Congo has recorded 11,042 confirmed cases of Ebola and 5,387 deaths in its continuing outbreak, according to government figures released on Tuesday, November 10. The new tally takes the epidemic past 11,000 cases and makes it the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in the country’s history, according to the World Health Organization. The Associated Press reported the figures on Wednesday as health teams worked to limit further transmission.
The outbreak, declared in mid-May, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus. Cases have been recorded in eight of Congo’s 26 provinces, with Ituri and North Kivu bearing the greatest burden. According to WHO, it is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, behind the 2014–2016 West African epidemic, which infected more than 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000.
WHO’s latest weekly report, using data through November 7, counted 10,920 confirmed cases and 5,323 deaths. It found nearly 390 new cases in the preceding reporting period and said transmission remained high, without a clear decline. The subsequent government tally indicates that cases and deaths continued to rise after that reporting cutoff. WHO says the response depends on rapid detection, isolation, medical care, contact tracing and safe burials because no vaccine or treatment is approved specifically for Bundibugyo disease.
Conflict, poor roads, pressure on health services and attacks on responders have complicated the work, AP reported. WHO said insecurity in parts of North Kivu and Tshopo, along with health-worker strikes, disrupted surveillance and response activities. Its weekly report also said follow-up of people exposed to cases had fallen to its lowest level in weeks, making it harder to interrupt chains of transmission.
The disease has also reached Kenya and Nigeria, although WHO said their known importation-related events remained contained in its November 7 report, with no new Kenyan case since October 19 and no identified secondary case in Nigeria. Congolese authorities and international partners are continuing surveillance and care while a clinical trial evaluates candidate vaccines. WHO plans a November 12 briefing on the outbreak; the immediate priority remains reaching patients and tracing contacts safely.
Comments