The Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola epidemic has crossed a grim milestone, with more than 3,000 people now dead since the outbreak was officially declared in mid-May 2026. According to the country's National Institute of Public Health, a total of 6,186 cases have been recorded and 3,007 people have died — a fatality rate of more than 48%. The epidemic has spread across 60 health zones in six provinces, with Ituri province, in the country's northeast, remaining the epicentre, accounting for 28 of those 36 affected zones.

The current outbreak is the deadliest Ebola crisis ever recorded in the DRC. A previous major outbreak in 2018 killed approximately 2,280 people before it was brought under control, and the broader West African epidemic of 2013–2016 claimed more than 11,000 lives across the continent. A significant complicating factor this time is that the strain circulating — known as the Bundibugyo variant — has no approved vaccine or treatment. The only available response is isolating infected individuals and managing symptoms in the hope of recovery. A vaccine effective against earlier variants is being tested in clinical trials, with 70,000 doses being administered to volunteers and healthcare workers; Africa CDC, the African Union's health agency, has described initial results as encouraging.

Despite the scale of the tragedy, health authorities are cautiously optimistic about recent trends. Professor Yap Boum, head of the emergency response division at Africa CDC, noted that the epidemic's reproduction number — a measure of how many people one infected person will go on to infect — has dropped sharply.