(Adnkronos) – In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), since the beginning of the epidemic, over 3,000 cases of Ebola have been registered, including 1,354 deaths, Congolese authorities reported yesterday. The DRC is facing a surge in infections in the eastern part of the country, a region afflicted by over 30 years of conflict. The threshold of 2,000 confirmed cases was surpassed on July 15, which means that over a thousand new cases have been registered in about ten days.
Ebola, which is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids and causes hemorrhagic fever, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the last 50 years. The deadliest epidemic in the DRC caused almost 2,300 deaths out of 3,500 registered cases, between 2018 and 2020. The seventeenth epidemic in the DRC, officially declared on May 15, is caused by the Bundibugyo viral strain, for which there is neither vaccine nor cure.
Yesterday, according to data published by the authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo, 3,075 cases were confirmed in five provinces of the country, including 1,354 deaths.
According to Congolese authorities, “the available data allows for more precise monitoring of the evolution of cases and deaths,” thanks to a “concrete improvement in case detection and confirmation.”
The epicenter of the crisis is in Ituri, a northeastern province bordering South Sudan and Uganda. In recent days, strikes have been registered in several hospitals in the region by personnel involved in the epidemic response, demanding salary payments.
A first volunteer received an experimental vaccine specifically targeting the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus last Friday, as reported by the University of Oxford. Several other experimental vaccines against Bundibugyo are in accelerated development with the aim of initiating clinical trials, while two potential treatments are in preparation.
