DR Congo’s worst Ebola epidemic ever passes 7,000 cases

DRC detected the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo virus in mid-May; nearly 3,400 people have since died.

Al JazeeraAl Jazeera Staff2026-09-12 15:58查看原文 ↗

DRC detected the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo virus in mid-May; nearly 3,400 people have since died.

A drone view of workers at the Ceca-20 cemetery in DRC's Ituri province as health workers struggle to contain the Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus [File: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters]

More than 7,000 Ebola cases have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) worst outbreak of the deadly disease, according to figures from Congolese authorities.

The DRC officially detected the latest outbreak in mid-May, but experts suspect it had been spreading under the radar for weeks before.

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Of the 7,022 registered cases, 3,398 people have died, according to DRC authorities. Currently, 837 people are in isolation or receiving treatment.

The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo virus, DRC’s 17th Ebola epidemic, began in the northeastern Ituri province.

It has since spread across conflict-plagued, remote eastern and northern regions where armed groups have roamed for decades, the presence of the state is weak and health infrastructure is largely lacking.

Earlier this week, one case of the disease was confirmed in a seventh province , South-Ubangi, which is in the northwest of the country bordering the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville.

Most of the recorded cases remain in Ituri, where Ebola has been detected in schools in the days after the post-summer holiday return to classes, causing alarm among parents and health workers.

“We are very worried because we don’t know which child comes from which family or what the health status of the members of that family is,” Angele Magani, a mother of a schoolboy in Bunia, Ituri’s provincial capital, told the AFP news agency.

“We are so scared, even though the school authorities reassure us about the health measures that have been put in place,” she added.

Bunia school official Roger Mungimbo told AFP that “there is a mandatory hand-washing system with soap, and we have also done everything possible to have a maximum of 30 pupils per classroom”.

“We regularly make the children aware that they must not touch each other, must not greet each other and must wash their hands regularly,” he added.

Ebola, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the last 50 years, is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids and can cause severe internal and external bleeding and organ failure.

The world’s deadliest outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2016 was the Zaire Ebola virus. That epidemic killed more than 11,325 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The Bundibugyo strain currently seen in DRC has no approved vaccine or treatment currently, although several potential treatments and vaccines are being tested.

刚果民主共和国于 5 月中旬发现了罕见的邦迪布焦病毒疫情；此后已有近 3400 人死亡。

无人机拍摄的画面显示，在刚果民主共和国伊图里省的塞卡-20公墓，医护人员正在努力控制由邦迪布焦病毒引起的埃博拉疫情。[图片：Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/路透社]

根据刚果（金）当局的数据，该国已记录了超过 7000 例埃博拉病例，这是该国爆发的致命疾病中最严重的一次。

刚果民主共和国于 5 月中旬正式发现了最新疫情，但专家怀疑疫情在此之前已经悄然蔓延了数周。

列表 1/3：刚果民主共和国开始接种疫苗，以应对规模最大、最致命的埃博拉疫情

列表 2/3：在对埃博拉疫情日益担忧之际，刚果民主共和国的儿童重返校园

刚果民主共和国第七省发现的3例埃博拉病例中的第3例

据刚果民主共和国当局统计，在已登记的7022例病例中，已有3398人死亡。目前，有837人正在接受隔离或治疗。

罕见的本迪布焦病毒爆发，这是刚果民主共和国第17次埃博拉疫情，始于东北部伊图里省。

此后，它蔓延到饱受冲突蹂躏的偏远东部和北部地区，武装团体在这些地区游荡了几十年，国家的存在很弱，卫生基础设施也严重不足。

本周早些时候，该国西北部与中非共和国和刚果（布）接壤的第七个省份南乌班吉省确诊了一例该疾病病例。

记录在案的病例大多仍集中在伊图里州，该州在暑假后学生返校后的几天里，在学校里发现了埃博拉病毒，这引起了家长和卫生工作者的恐慌。