Confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have surpassed 10,000 as the outbreak continues to spread across the country and beyond its borders.
Government data released on Tuesday put confirmed cases at 10,060 and deaths at 4,88
It is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in the country’s history and nearly half of the 10,060 confirmed to have the virus have died, according to data from the DRC’s Ministry of Public Health. That also makes it the deadliest outbreak of the disease in the country’s history.
With cases also mounting outside the DRC, the wider outbreak is also the second-largest and second-deadliest on record, trailing only the 2014-2016 West African epidemic, which saw 28,600 infected and more than 11,000 dead within two years.
About 80 percent of new cases are coming from outside the chains of transmission that health authorities are monitoring.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said at least 95 percent of cases must come from the known contacts of infected people for the outbreak to be considered under control.
The outbreak, declared on May 15, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare Ebola strain for which no vaccine or treatment has been approved. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the first clinical trial for a vaccine had been rolled out.
