The death toll from the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has surged above 1,300, marking an extraordinary rise of more than 40 percent in just five days as a leading public health consultant warns the virus is “spreading like a wildfire.”

 

 

Updated government data released on Saturday showed that the total number of confirmed cases, including deaths, had climbed to 2,973—a 27 percent increase from the previous week.

 

 

The unprecedented speed of transmission and rising mortality have made this epidemic the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak ever documented.

 

 

 

Compounding the crisis, the virus driving the current epidemic is Bundibugyo ebolavirus, the rarest of the four Ebola species known to infect humans. Unlike the Zaire strain responsible for previous major outbreaks, there are currently no approved vaccines or targeted antiviral treatments for Bundibugyo.

 

 

Abdulsalami Nasidi, a public health consultant who helped establish the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), noted that the absence of a proven vaccine is allowing the virus to spread unchecked, particularly in areas plagued by active conflict and severe health resource shortages.Researchers are racing to develop medical countermeasures.

 

 

The University of Oxford’s Oxford Vaccine Group announced that a volunteer received the first dose of an experimental candidate in a rapidly launched clinical trial. “This is an important milestone for the trial, and marks the next phase in our multinational collaborative journey to develop a Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccine.”— Katrina Pollock, Chief Investigator, Oxford Vaccine Team

 

 

By comparison, the 2013–2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic—the largest in history killed more than 11,000 people out of 28,000 cases. However, that outbreak took roughly eight months to cross the 1,000-death threshold.

 

 

The current outbreak in the DRC reached that milestone in under 10 weeks. Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya issued an urgent appeal for global intervention: “We must act now. If we do not stop it today, this will become the worst outbreak the world has ever documented.”

 

 

More than 100 health workers have contracted the virus since May, with approximately 35 deaths recorded among medical personnel. Medical staff at several facilities, including the Elikya Ebola Treatment Centre in the provincial capital of Bunia, have initiated strikes over unpaid risk bonuses and unsafe working conditions, leaving critical treatment units severely understaffed.

 

 

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that official figures likely underestimate the true scale of the crisis, as ongoing regional conflict prevents response teams from reaching remote villages.