According to an epidemic report released by the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ministry of Health on the 11th local time, as of the 10th, this round of the Ebola outbreak has affected seven provinces in the country. The cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has reached 7,022, including 3,398 deaths and 1,671 recoveries.

File photo:On June 20,In Mongbwalu, Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, medical staff escort an Ebola patient to the treatment center. 

The report stated that the first confirmed case was reported in the country’s Northwest Province of South Ubangi—a 23-year-old man with a history of travel to an area associated with the outbreak, who has since died.

Previously, six provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uélé, Bas-Uélé, and Tshopo—had reported confirmed cases of Ebola. The South Ubangi Province does not border any of the aforementioned six provinces.

On the 10th, the government of South Ubangi Province announced that a confirmed case of Ebola has been reported in the province, making it the seventh province in the country to be affected by the current Ebola outbreak. The province will continue to strengthen epidemic monitoring, case management, and prevention and control measures, striving to cut off the chain of virus transmission.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recently stated that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is accelerating its spread beyond the core affected areas. In Ituri Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, new cases and deaths have recently declined; however, in North Kivu and Haut-Uélé Provinces, both new cases and deaths have risen significantly.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo announced an Ebola outbreak on May 15. On August 12, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo “is now the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record.”