The World Health Organization has warned that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is on course to become the deadliest on record. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on August 12 that, at its current pace, the epidemic is on track to eclipse the 2014-16 West African outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people out of roughly 28,000 cases [1].
The figures behind that warning come from two WHO documents that should be read separately rather than merged, because they capture different dates. The WHO Regional Office for Africa's External Situation Report 13, with data as of August 9, records 4,381 confirmed cases and 2,011 confirmed deaths, a case-fatality ratio of 45.9 percent [3]. Recomputed against those counts, 2,011 deaths on 4,381 cases is 45.9 percent, close to one death for every two people infected. The report marks an increase of 579 confirmed cases and 304 confirmed deaths since the previous situation report [3].
An earlier WHO Disease Outbreak News notice, DON614, carried data as of July 30 and counted 3,605 confirmed cases and 1,587 deaths inside the DRC [2]. That notice already described the outbreak as the largest recorded in the country, surpassing the 2018-2020 outbreak, which produced 3,317 confirmed cases [2]. The two snapshots, ten days apart, trace the speed of the spread.
The deaths are concentrated. Situation Report 13 attributes 85.8 percent of cumulative cases and 80.6 percent of cumulative deaths to Ituri province, and notes that cumulative deaths crossed the 2,000 mark only 86 days after the outbreak was officially declared on May 15 [3].
What separates this outbreak from the tools that ended earlier ones is the strain. This is Bundibugyo virus, and there is no vaccine or treatment yet approved for it [1]. The vaccines and monoclonal-antibody therapies that were deployed against the Zaire strain in eastern Congo in 2018-2020 are not licensed for Bundibugyo. Two candidate vaccines are in first human trials, which means they are being tested for safety, not distributed to patients.
WHO's Dr Abdirahman Mahamud framed how long this could run. His moderate projection is a peak within six months; a severe scenario stretches the outbreak to nine to twelve months [1]. Either way, the response is chasing a virus that started ahead of it, and every week the count of the dead rises against a strain that medicine cannot yet prevent or cure.
