The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surpassed 7,000, and the infection has spread to yet another province, according to infohub.kz.
According to the latest data, the disease has been confirmed in 7,022 people across seven provinces. The outbreak has claimed 3,398 lives.
The current outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, has become the largest and deadliest in Congo's history. It has surpassed the 2018–2020 epidemic and now ranks second in the world in scale.
The largest outbreak remains the one in West Africa in 2014–2016. At that time, more than 28,600 people were infected in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and over 11,000 patients died.
The new Ebola case was detected in South Ubangi province in northwestern Congo — far from the epicenter of the outbreak. The area borders the Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.
The Bundibugyo virus was found in a 23-year-old man who died on Tuesday. It emerged that on July 10 he left South Kivu province in the east of the country, spent some time abroad, and then returned to Congo and arrived in South Ubangi.
"Contact tracing is currently under way for the first confirmed case in South Ubangi province," the report from Congo's National Institute of Public Health says.
The World Health Organization has previously warned that a shortage of qualified health workers, operational partners and funding is hampering efforts to stop the spread of Ebola. The problems are growing more serious as the outbreak's geographic reach expands.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that 5,000 health workers are needed to fight the Ebola epidemic.