The number of Ebola victims is rapidly increasing in an African country

Tengrinews.kz — The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exceeded 10,000. This is according to official data released on Tuesday, October 27, according to DW.

The number of cases has reached 10,060, with 4,887 deaths, according to the DRC's National Institute of Public Health.

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain, has been ongoing since mid-May and has become the largest and deadliest in the country's history, surpassing the 2018–2020 epidemic in both scale and rate of transmission.

Overall, this is the second-largest and deadliest outbreak on record. Only the 2014–2016 epidemic saw more casualties, when over 28,600 people were infected and more than 11,000 died, primarily in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

There is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for this rare strain. The situation is exacerbated by armed conflict in the DRC, poor road infrastructure, and outbreaks of violence from local residents fueled by misinformation and a lack of trust in authorities.

Approximately half of the recorded deaths occurred among individuals who were not hospitalized, indicating that in many areas, those infected are not reporting their symptoms at all.

The virus spreads easily and can remain undetected for a long time because some of its symptoms are similar to those of other diseases, such as malaria. Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people and can cause severe hemorrhagic fever.