DR Congo Reports Signs of Improvement as Ebola Death Toll Crosses 4,000

Health Minister Roger Kamba said the outbreak was increasingly becoming concentrated in individual health zones rather than affecting entire provinces.

“We are no longer talking about outbreaks at the provincial level, but outbreaks concentrated in individual health zones,” Kamba said during a briefing in Kinshasa.

According to figures released by the health authorities on Friday, the outbreak has resulted in 4,018 deaths among 8,300 confirmed cases across seven provinces. The reported case fatality rate stands at 48.4 per cent, while 2,162 patients have recovered.

Of the 63 health zones that have recorded cases since the outbreak began, 12 have gone 42 consecutive days without reporting a new infection, according to Kamba.

He said the situation remained uneven across affected areas but added that the number of health zones reporting active cases had declined.

The signs of improvement come amid concerns from international medical organisations over the ability to accurately track the spread of the disease. Médecins Sans Frontières warned that the actual number of infections and deaths could be higher than official figures because gaps in surveillance and case detection may mean some cases are going unrecorded.

The outbreak, which was declared in May, has become the largest Ebola outbreak recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the second-largest Ebola epidemic globally after the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa.

The response has also been complicated by deteriorating security conditions in parts of eastern DRC. The United Nations has warned that continuing violence is making it more difficult for health workers and humanitarian organisations to reach affected communities.

A key transit facility used for suspected Ebola patients was recently destroyed by fire at the Kigonze displacement camp in Ituri province, further disrupting efforts to identify, isolate and treat suspected cases.

Health authorities and international organisations continue to focus on surveillance, case detection, treatment and containment measures in affected communities, while the decline in cases across some health zones offers an indication of progress despite the continuing scale of the outbreak.