DR Congo Ebola deaths surpass 3,000 as outbreak continues to spread

Deaths from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak have surpassed 3,000, with the country’s worst-ever epidemic continuing to spread across its northeast.

Government figures published Wednesday put the death toll at 3,007, with 6,186 confirmed cases. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, has spread to six provinces since it was formally declared in Ituri on 15 May.

The scale of the outbreak is increasing pressure on already stretched healthcare and disease-surveillance systems, with insecurity and community resistance hampering efforts to identify and treat patients early. The World Health Organization estimates that around 60% of deaths occur outside treatment centres, underlining the difficulty of detecting cases before patients become critically ill.

For travel insurers and assistance providers, the high proportion of deaths occurring outside formal healthcare settings highlights the challenges of arranging timely medical intervention and monitoring potential exposure among travellers and staff in affected areas.

Bundibugyo Ebola has no approved vaccine or specific treatment, although several candidates are in development. Congolese authorities have begun vaccinating frontline health workers with Merck’s Ervebo vaccine, which is licensed against the Zaire species and is believed to provide some cross-protection against Bundibugyo.

The outbreak is now the second-deadliest Ebola epidemic on record, behind the 2014–16 West African outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.