Ebola’s toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo is climbing again, with health authorities reporting 956 confirmed cases and 247 deaths.
The latest figures mark an increase from Friday’s update, when officials counted 933 confirmed infections and 245 deaths.
The jump comes as the World Health Organization warns the virus is moving quickly even as containment efforts intensify, underscoring how hard it has been to stay ahead of the outbreak.
The WHO said it is still struggling to keep pace with a worsening situation in northeastern DRC, where new infections are continuing to emerge.
“The outbreak remains serious” and is “evolving so fast”, said Marie-Roseline Belizaire, the WHO Africa emergencies chief.
The WHO said it was still racing to catch up with the worsening situation
The outbreak was declared on 15 May, though transmission had been going undetected for some time.
It is being driven by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no vaccine.
Earlier this week, Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned the crisis could become the worst Ebola outbreak on record, cautioning that delays in fixing key gaps in the response could make containment far more costly later.
“If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon it will be worse than what we had in West Africa and eastern DRC,” Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya told a virtual meeting of African heads of state and donors in Burundi.
