Uganda Officially Declares End of Ebola Outbreak, While Democratic Republic of Congo Sees Rapid Spread

Uganda, which declared an Ebola outbreak alongside the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) two months ago, officially announced the end of the outbreak on the 28th local time.

The Ugandan Ministry of Health announced via social media X that Minister of Health Chris Baryomunsi stated that day, "Ebola has officially ended in Uganda."

Since declaring the Ebola outbreak on May 15, Uganda has reported a total of 20 confirmed cases, including 2 deaths.

The government explained that 15 of the confirmed cases, including the first patient, were imported from the DRC, while the rest were contacts such as domestic medical personnel who treated them.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Communication and Media in the DRC announced that as of the 26th, there were 3,262 confirmed cases, of which 1,437 were fatal.

In just three days from the 2,973 confirmed cases and 1,309 deaths recorded as of the 23rd, the number of confirmed cases increased by 289 and deaths by 128.

The Ministry of Communication and Media stated that the fatality rate stands at 44.1% and the contact tracing rate is 78.2%.

The current Ebola epidemic in the DRC is already the third-largest in history in terms of confirmed cases and deaths.

During the West African Ebola epidemic from 2014 to 2016 across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, more than 28,000 cases were confirmed with over 11,000 deaths, while the eastern DRC epidemic from 2018 to 2020 resulted in approximately 3,400 infections and nearly 2,300 deaths.

Bloomberg reported that, given the rate of spread, the current epidemic is expected to soon surpass the scale of damage seen during the 2018–2020 DRC outbreak.

Bloomberg added that while it took one year to reach 2,687 cases during that previous outbreak, the current epidemic has surpassed that figure in less than 10 weeks since it was officially declared.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.