{"id":515298,"date":"2026-06-24T01:26:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T01:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/515298\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T01:26:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T01:26:58","slug":"ebola-cases-in-congo-reach-highest-first-month-total-of-any-outbreak-says-who-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/515298\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola cases in Congo reach highest first-month total of any outbreak, says WHO \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ebola<\/a> outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo<\/a> has the largest number of confirmed cases within \u200bthe first month of any episode of the disease, a senior World Health Organisation official told a briefing on Tuesday, blaming the increase on its quick spread to urban areas. <\/p>\n

The Bundibugyo outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that has infected more than 1,000 people \u200band killed 267 was detected late and experts say the virus had already been circulating for months before it was officially declared on \u2060May 15th.<\/p>\n

Abdirahman Mahamud of the World Health Organisation told a press briefing in Geneva that part of the reason for the \u200cscale \u200cof \u200bthe outbreak was that some early confirmed cases were in urban centres, such as Bunia and the mining town of Mongbwalu. Many past outbreaks have first been identified in \u2060rural areas and often petered out \u200bquickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is important is we need to scale up \u200band this outbreak is moving faster than us,\u201d he told reporters, after returning from Bunia last week.<\/p>\n

He noted signs \u200cof hope, highlighting a quick increase in \u200bthe number of Ebola beds to more than 500 in the past fortnight and signs that community resistance and \u2060violent resistance to Ebola responders was beginning to \u2060abate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more \u200bcommunities are aware of the risk of Ebola and are asking for tools to support and protect themselves,” he said.<\/p>\n

The two largest previous Ebola outbreaks were one in West Africa, in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, which killed 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016, and a less fatal outbreak in the DRC in 2018. Ebola cases have now been reported in at least three of eastern Congo\u2019s crowded displacement camps.<\/p>\n

The International Organisation for Migration\u2019s Abdoulaye Wone said at the same briefing \u200cthat at least 25 \u2060cases had been confirmed at the camps, including 14 deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in a normal situation before the outbreak, they were facing overcrowding,\u201d he said, adding that many leave the camps by day for \u200cwork or to seek food.<\/p>\n

Justin Zanamuzi, director of Catholic aid organisation Caritas which is helping at the Kigonze camp, told Reuters \u200bthat four children there had died since Monday although test results were not \u200byet available.<\/p>\n

There have been over 20 outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Plight of Ebola-engulfed region laid bareOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has the largest number of confirmed cases within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[8044,196728,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-515298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-ebola-disease","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}