Democratic Republic of the Congo Number of suspected Ebola deaths rises to over 200
The death toll in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to rise. According to the Congolese government, 867 suspected cases have been reported since the outbreak began, 204 of whom have died. That is more than 100 infections and a good 30 more deaths than the day before.
24.05.2026, 07:18
SDA
So far, 91 infections have been confirmed in the laboratory, 10 of which were fatal. In neighboring Uganda, five further confirmed cases are known to date that are linked to the outbreak in eastern Congo. The country does not publish figures on suspected cases.
Number of cases probably significantly higher
The World Health Organization assumes that the actual number of cases is significantly higher because the outbreak in eastern Congo went unnoticed for weeks and not all cases are reported. Clusters of unexplained deaths have already been investigated.
The Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva announced that three Red Cross volunteers had probably already been infected on March 27 when they came into contact with the dead in the Congolese province of Ituri.
They had been deployed on another humanitarian mission - before it became known that the Ebola virus was rampant. They reportedly died on May 5, 15 and 16. However, as the current outbreak involves the rare Bundibugyo type of Ebola virus, the pathogen was not initially confirmed using conventional tests.
Outbreak remained undetected for weeks
So far, the earliest known infection in the current outbreak was a man from the Congo who was treated with symptoms on April 24 and died three days later. The first Ebola cases were only confirmed in the laboratory on May 15. On 17 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern. At that time, there were already more than 240 known suspected infections.
The outbreak thus spread unnoticed for weeks in Ituri, a province more than 1,500 kilometers as the crow flies from the capital Kinshasa on the border with Uganda and South Sudan. According to UN figures, an estimated eight million people live there, including almost one million internally displaced persons. Several militias are engaged in violence there, and many workers and traders come and go in the resource-rich mining area in the border region.
No vaccine or treatment yet for rare Ebola variant
Ebola fever is a contagious and life-threatening infectious disease. The current outbreak is particularly difficult to contain because there is neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment for the rare Bundibugyo type.
The WHO considers the risk of infection to be very high in Congo, high in the region, but low worldwide. Unlike the coronavirus, for example, Ebola is not transmitted by airborne droplets, but through close contact with the body fluids of an infected person.
