More than 3,000 cases of Ebola, including 1,354 fatalities, have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since the beginning of the epidemic, Congolese authorities reported on Sunday (07/26/2026), after the threshold of 2,000 cases was exceeded in mid-July.

The DRC is facing an Ebola outbreak in the east of the country, a region devastated by more than 30 years of armed conflict.

The disease, which is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids and causes hemorrhagic fever, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past 50 years.

The deadliest epidemic in the DRC caused nearly 2,300 deaths out of 3,500 cases registered between 2018 and 2020.

The 17th epidemic in the DRC, officially declared on May 15, is the product of the Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment.

On Sunday, 3,075 cases had been confirmed in five provinces of the country, including 1,354 deaths, according to official data.

The threshold of 2,000 confirmed cases had been exceeded on July 15.

The epicenter of the crisis is in Ituri, a province in the northeast of the DRC, bordering South Sudan and Uganda, which concentrates about 90% of the cases, according to the WHO.

gs (afp, efe)