{"id":21649,"date":"2026-08-02T12:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T12:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=21649"},"modified":"2026-08-02T12:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T12:41:21","slug":"congos-ebola-outbreak-is-second-largest-on-record-latest-data-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/21649\/congos-ebola-outbreak-is-second-largest-on-record-latest-data-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Congo’s Ebola outbreak is second-largest on record, latest data shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Democratic Republic of Congo’s fast-spreading Ebola outbreak is now the world’s second-largest on \u200crecord, government data showed on Friday, as transmission continues to outpace efforts to contain the epidemic.<\/p>\n

The number of cases reported across Congo has risen to 3,532, the Communications Ministry said in a statement, with 1,556 deaths recorded.<\/p>\n

“It’s the fastest-spreading Ebola epidemic that we have \u200bever seen,” Carl Skau, acting head of the U.N. World Food Programme, told Reuters this week. “The \u200bworld needs to pay much more attention.”<\/p>\n

Less than three months since the outbreak began, the \u2060disease has killed five times as many people as previous outbreaks had by the same stage, according to \u200bAfrica’s top public health agency, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo \u200bstrain of the Ebola virus, which has no approved vaccine or treatment.<\/p>\n

Health responders are also battling insecurity and across eastern Congo, where dozens of armed groups operate, while deep foreign aid cuts have stretched resources.<\/p>\n

The latest figures about the outbreak \u200bindicate that only West Africa’s 2014 to 2016 outbreak was bigger, with 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths recorded across \u200bGuinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n

WHO SAYS OUTBREAK MAY BE BIGGER THAN REPORTED<\/strong><\/p>\n

Angele Gapio, head of \u200cemergencies for \u2060the Caritas charity in the northeastern city of Bunia, said awareness campaigns were failing and frontline responders were exhausted and traumatised.<\/p>\n

“The disease has now settled in the community,” she told Reuters. “People continue to seek treatment from traditional healers, and the chain of transmission continues.”<\/p>\n

The WHO said earlier this month the true scale of the outbreak could be \u200bup to four times higher \u200bthan official figures suggest.<\/p>\n

Reuters \u2060reported\u00a0this week that surveillance efforts are stretched due to shortages of vehicles, understaffing and community mistrust.<\/p>\n

MORE FUNDS NEEDED TO CONTAIN EPIDEMIC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Africa CDC said in June it would \u200brequire\u00a0$1.4 billion\u00a0to contain the Ebola outbreak, three times its earlier estimate.<\/p>\n

Figures presented this \u200bweek by Africa \u2060CDC and the WHO showed Congo’s May-August response plan had secured $213.9 million in declared funding, short of planned spending of $242.4 million.<\/p>\n

A U.S. travel ban is also restricting the supply of aid workers. The Trump administration said earlier this month it \u2060was\u00a0blocking American \u200bcitizens\u00a0in Congo from travelling to the U.S. on commercial flights.<\/p>\n

Samaritan’s \u200bPurse, which operates treatment centres and relies on U.S. responders for its mission in Congo, said it will have to\u00a0scale back because of the \u200bquarantine order.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic Republic of Congo’s fast-spreading Ebola outbreak is now the world’s second-largest on \u200crecord, government data showed on Friday, as transmission continues to outpace efforts to contain the epidemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,2854],"tags":[3017,3016,1452],"class_list":["post-21649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-health","tag-africa-centres-for-disease-control-and-prevention","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-ebola-outbreak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21650,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21649\/revisions\/21650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}