The outbreak, declared on May 15, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare Ebola strain for which no approved vaccine or treatment exists. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced last week that the first clinical trial for a vaccine had been rolled out.
About 80 percent of new cases are emerging 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 known contacts of infected people for the outbreak to be considered under control.
Healthcare shortages are hampering the response. Five months into the outbreak, some treatment centres are overwhelmed, while remote and newly affected areas lack medical supplies and health workers. Cases have been recorded in 66 health zones across eight provinces, up from just three in the early days. At least half of those who have died were never admitted for treatment. Strikes over delayed or unpaid wages have affected responders, and health workers have come under attack amid public mistrust and frustration with the government's response.
On Saturday, assailants killed a nurse and seriously injured a colleague as the two responded to a suspected case in Bafwasende, Tshopo province, the WHO said. "Everyone working to protect communities from this deadly disease must be able to work in dignity and safety," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media.
The virus has had a wider cross-border reach than any earlier Ebola epidemic. Uganda has recorded 20 cases, mostly imported from the DRC, and two deaths over the summer. Kenya’s confirmed infections rose to nine, two of them fatal. Nigerian officials imposed heightened airport screening after a woman married to a Swiss diplomat was diagnosed with Ebola in Nigeria following a visit to Uganda; she was later evacuated to Switzerland for treatment.
On the global scale, the outbreak is the second-largest and second-deadliest on record, trailing only the 2014-2016 West African epidemic, which infected 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000.