A further complication is that the outbreak is taking place in a conflict zone, with a quarter of million people displaced from their homes and people moving across porous borders into neighbouring countries.
Trish Newport, from medical charity Doctors Without Borders, who is heavily involved in efforts to tackle the outbreak, told the BBC World Service that territory constantly changed hands between different armed groups, making it difficult for emergency response teams to simply drive to Ebola hot-spots.
She pointed out that a further problem was bad roads, with a 90km (56-mile) journey from Bunia city to Mongbwalu, one of two gold-mining towns where the majority of cases have been reported, taking more than three hours.
However, the WHO’s declaration in May that this outbreak was a public health emergency of international concern did not mean we were in the early stages of a Covid-style pandemic. The risk Ebola poses outside Central and East Africa is minimal.
How did the current Ebola outbreak start?
The first known case was a nurse who developed symptoms on 24 April, which means the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks.
The nurse died in Bunia, the capital of eastern DR Congo’s Ituri province, according to Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba.