Ebola toll continues to rise, outbreak the third worst

In addition, 780 patients are in hospital isolation and another 285 people have recovered from the disease. The contact tracing rate is 78.1 per cent, authorities said.

The outbreak is concentrated in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu.

South Kivu has now surpassed the 42-day threshold without a new confirmed case, a major milestone toward the official declaration of the epidemic's end in the province.

World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols stipulate that an Ebola outbreak can be declared over if no new cases are detected for 42 consecutive days, twice the incubation period.

The outbreak was officially declared on May 15 in Ituri, a province bordering Uganda and South Sudan.

The epidemic also spread to Uganda, where 20 confirmed cases have been detected, including 15 cases considered imported from the DRC, and among which there have been two deaths.

The outbreak corresponds to the Bundibugyo strain, which has a fatality rate between 30 per cent and 50 per cent and for which there is no authorised vaccine or specific treatment.

The WHO considers the risk of the outbreak spreading in sub-Saharan Africa to be "high," and "low" globally.

The WHO estimates that the virus began circulating in Ituri about two months before the outbreak was confirmed.

It was declared a public health emergency of international concern on May 17.

This is the third worst Ebola epidemic in recorded history and the 17th to affect the DRC.

The current outbreak is second only to the one that struck West Africa between 2014 and 2016, which left about 11,000 dead and 28,000 infected, and another that affected eastern Congo between 2018 and 2020, causing 2299 deaths and 3481 cases.

The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people or animals and causes severe hemorrhagic fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, and internal bleeding.