politics
Bundibugyo Ebola Outbreak in DRC Kills 10, 1 Recovers
The World Health Organization reports a 30-50% death rate among confirmed cases and more than 1,000 total infections. Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Kinshasa on Thursday to coordinate the response.
May 29, 12:38 PM·3m read2 sources
Deadly crisisContained
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The World Health Organization has recorded 10 confirmed and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, along with more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases. Anaïs Legand of the WHO’s high threat pathogens team told reporters in Geneva that the death rate among confirmed cases stands between 30% and 50%. “It’s huge.
It means that up to five out of 10 people are likely to die,” she said. A patient recovered from Ebola and was discharged from a health centre in the DRC on 27 May after two negative tests, marking the first confirmed recovery in the outbreak. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, arrived in Kinshasa on Thursday.
He was scheduled to travel to the outbreak centre in north-east Ituri province on Friday, but the trip was delayed by one day. ” The true scale of the outbreak may be larger, the WHO said, because the virus is believed to have circulated undetected for some time.
This marks the 17th recorded Ebola epidemic in the DRC, a country of more than 100 million people where the disease was first identified in 1976.
Ebola’s death rate has averaged 50% across all outbreaks, according to the WHO. The outbreak is centred on a mineral-rich region fought over by armed groups. “Conflict and displacement make everything harder,” Tedros said.
More than 245,000 people have fled eastern DRC to neighbouring countries since January 2025, according to the UN refugee agency. Armed groups operating in the area include the Rwanda-backed M23, which controls large parts of the North and South Kivu provinces south of Ituri. Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, exhaustion, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat.
