"Spreading Virus" Medical Worker Killed... Half of Confirmed Cases Result in Death

It has been confirmed that the cumulative number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has surpassed 10,000, 165 days after the declaration of the outbreak.

According to Reuters and Xinhua News Agency on the 27th (local time), the National Institute of Public Health of the DRC announced that as of the 25th, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the country stood at 10,060, with 4,887 deaths (a fatality rate of 48.6%).

While this is the second-largest scale following the 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic—the largest Ebola outbreak in history—the initial rate of spread is much faster than back then, when it took eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

Uganda, which declared an outbreak on the same day as the DRC, recorded 20 confirmed cases and 2 deaths. With no additional cases reported since July, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the end of Ebola in Uganda last August.

However, in the DRC, about 2,000 new cases are still being reported every month.

The worsening situation is attributed to the virus strain and poor local security.

This outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo strain, rather than the typical Zaire strain, and there are currently no officially approved vaccines or treatments.

In addition, many of the outbreak areas are controlled by rebel groups, and residents harbor a deep distrust of medical staff, hindering smooth intervention by health authorities and making it difficult to prevent the spread.

In fact, on the 24th, in Tshopo Province in the northeastern region, a local nurse was killed in an attack by residents who claimed that "medical workers are contaminating water sources to spread the virus."

With infection and death cases recently reported in Kenya and Nigeria as well, this crisis is showing patterns of the widest epidemic in history, spreading beyond central Africa to eastern and western regions.

As cross-border infected individuals were all found to have passed through Uganda, the Ugandan government re-examined whether there were any additional confirmed cases within its borders, but stated that there are no other confirmed Ebola cases to date.

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