The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) says more than 5,000 Bundibugyo Ebola cases and 2,320 deaths have been recorded across six provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Africa CDC Director-General, Dr Jean Kaseya, said this on Tuesday via his official X handle, noting that the outbreak, with a fatality rate nearing 50 per cent, was Congo’s deadliest Ebola epidemic.
Kaseya said Uganda demonstrated that containment was possible after ending its Ebola outbreak on July 28 through urgent, focused response measures, urging Congolese authorities to adopt similar interventions immediately.
“Congo should urgently implement six interventions: community-led response, ERVEBO vaccination alongside Phase III trials, health-worker protection, treatment access, humanitarian integration and accountability.
“The scale of deaths demands decisive, unified action, with every delay potentially costing more lives and undermining efforts to contain the outbreak,” Kaseya added, calling for urgent collective action,” he said.