A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official stated during a Geneva briefing on Tuesday that the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has recorded the highest number of confirmed cases within the first month of any African Ebola outbreak.
As of Monday, officials confirmed over 1,000 cases and 267 deaths in the present outbreak, which involves the relatively rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus.
“This represents the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola outbreak in Africa,” said Abdirahman Mahamud, WHO Director of Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations, in a press release.
The WHO officially declared the outbreak on May 15, though experts suspect the disease had been circulating for weeks or months before that date.
Dozens of cases confirmed at eastern Congo displacement camps
“The response must scale up to match the widening outbreak — this is now beginning to happen,” Mahamud said after returning from a recent visit to the Bunia treatment centre, the outbreak’s epicentre.
Cases have also been confirmed in at least three of the densely populated displacement camps in eastern Congo’s war‑torn regions.
Abdoulaye Wone of the International Organization for Migration noted during the same Geneva briefing on Tuesday that 25 cases, including 14 fatalities, had been confirmed within those camps.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have occurred across Africa since the 1970s.
The deadliest previous outbreaks occurred in West Africa — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — resulting in 11,000 deaths between 2014 and 2016, and a 2018 Congo outbreak that claimed 2,229 lives.
The Ebola survivors of DR Congo
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Kenya orders halt to construction of US-backed Ebola quarantine facility
On Tuesday, Kenya’s Health Minister Aden Duale informed a court that he had ordered an immediate suspension of a US‑backed Ebola quarantine facility under construction at an air base.
He had been found in contempt of court on Monday for not complying with earlier orders to suspend construction pending a judicial review.
The tented facility in Nanyuki was intended to serve as a treatment centre for any US nationals who might contract Ebola during the DR Congo outbreak.
The proposal, first announced in May, sparked periodic violent protests that resulted in three fatalities in the surrounding area.
What else do we know about the paused Kenya plans?
Justice Patricia Nyaundi Mande released Duale without further penalty after receiving his assurance, but cautioned him against any further non‑compliance.
“I have ordered the immediate and complete cessation of any intended construction, site preparation, or related activities concerning the Laikipia Air Base facility pending the hearing and determination of the substantive petition or until further orders of this court,” Duale stated during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
The construction is taking place at the Laikipia Air Base, approximately 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital, Nairobi, and will contain around 50 isolation beds, to be managed by US medical staff.
The proposal generated significant domestic opposition and protests. Kenya has never recorded an Ebola case, and there was public concern about introducing patients to its territory — even the prospect of air‑lifting them to a secure medical facility.
Rights organisations successfully petitioned the court, arguing that the facility was being built secretly and without consultation. Initially, the government ignored orders to suspend construction pending review.
Flight tracking data, satellite imagery and anonymous US officials indicated continued preparations at the site despite the earlier court order.
The only US citizen confirmed to have contracted Ebola in the current outbreak — a doctor serving as a medical missionary in eastern DRC — was air‑lifted to Germany for treatment at a specialist facility in Berlin.
Kenya does not share a border with Congo, but it lies directly east of Uganda, which borders the outbreak’s epicentre in Ituri province, eastern DRC.
Kenya Ebola panic turns deadly over US quarantine facility
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