WHO Reports 10 Ebola Deaths and 1 Recovery in DRC

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.

These can progress to vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, rash and impaired kidney and liver function. The disease spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person or someone who has died from Ebola. There is no approved treatment for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola responsible for the current outbreak.

The WHO said on Thursday that its advisory groups had recommended clinical trials of vaccines and treatments. Jean Kaseya, head of the African Union’s health agency, said a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year. Neighbouring Uganda recorded one Ebola death and eight additional cases.

Uganda announced on Wednesday it would immediately close its border with the DRC. The WHO warned that border closures could drive up informal crossings and make it harder to monitor and contain the disease. Kenya’s high court temporarily suspended plans to establish a quarantine and treatment facility for affected US citizens in Kenya.

Judge Patricia Nyaundi ruled that Kenya was not allowed to admit anyone exposed to or infected by Ebola under the proposed deal with the US until a challenge brought by the Kenyan rights group Katiba Institute was heard. The US had said it would deny entry to its territory to anyone infected with the disease.

More than 30 staff from the US Public Health Service left the US for Kenya on Wednesday after receiving three days’ training in Washington DC.

5 million toward Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts. The US had already pledged $112 million to the regional response. “The United States’s highest priority remains protecting the health and security of the American people by working to prevent the Ebola outbreak from reaching our shores,” Rubio said.

Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years. The deadliest outbreak in the DRC killed nearly 2,300 patients from 3,500 cases between 2018 and 2020. 6 tonnes of aid at the airport in Bunia, the capital of Ituri.

Unicef said it would send 100 tonnes of aid. Authorities have reported 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths.