Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) raised the number of confirmed cases of Ebola to 488 in the outbreak declared on May 15 in the east of the country, including 86 deaths, and warned of the risk of the situation worsening if control measures are not adopted quickly.
According to the most recent bulletin from the Congolese National Institute of Public Health, the province of Ituri continues to be the main focus of the epidemic, concentrating more than 94% of registered cases.
Currently, 267 patients are hospitalized or in isolation, while the number of recovered people has risen to nine. The fatality rate is 17.6%.
The outbreak, initially limited to Ituri, has since spread to the neighboring provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu and it also crossed the border into Uganda, where 19 cases have already been confirmed, including two deaths.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the outbreak is associated with the variant Bundibugyo of the Ebola virus, for which there is currently no authorized vaccine or specific treatment. The WHO considers the risk of spread in sub-Saharan Africa to be high, although the global risk remains low.
