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The outbreak has reached a fourth province, meaning the entire northeastern DRC — home to approximately 15 million people — is now affected, according to the WHO. The national toll has climbed to at least 1,333 confirmed cases and 399 deaths, with cases recorded across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. Health authorities are also tracing contacts in Tshopo province after the body of a pregnant woman who died of Ebola in Ituri's Niania health zone on June 27 was transported roughly 300 kilometres west by motorcycle; she had first fallen ill on June 18. The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which no approved vaccine or specific treatment exists, though clinical trials are expected to begin within days.
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The outbreak has now grown to at least 1,274 confirmed cases and 360 deaths across the DRC, with 47 new cases and 12 deaths reported in a single 24-hour period, 96 percent of them originating in Équateur Province, which has overtaken Ituri as the leading transmission hotspot. Cases have spread to 35 health zones nationally, and 96 healthcare workers have been infected across the DRC and Uganda combined. The DRC's interior ministry has banned mass gatherings in Kinshasa and three bordering provinces — Tshopo, Haut-Uele and Bas-Uele — as a precaution, though no cases have been confirmed in the capital; opposition leaders have condemned the order as politically motivated ahead of a scheduled protest march on 8 July. Nearly 300 confirmed patients remain unaccounted for, Africa CDC's director warned, describing the tracking gaps as a serious threat to containment efforts.
An Ebola outbreak is spreading through displacement camps in the Ituri province of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with five sites already reporting confirmed cases and deaths, raising fears that ongoing population movement could accelerate transmission across the region.
Ituri, a province in northeastern DRC that has endured two decades of armed conflict, currently hosts more than one million internally displaced people across 107 sites. The epicentre of the current outbreak is Mongbwalu, a mining town in the province, and since the third week of June, people seeking medical care have been moving from Mongbwalu toward the larger towns of Bunia and Nizi — movements that health authorities identify as a key driver of the virus's spread. Breaking these chains of transmission among displaced populations is now considered one of the most critical challenges in containing the epidemic.
A significant part of the problem lies in uneven humanitarian coverage. Only 69 of the 107 displacement sites are monitored by aid organisations, leaving others without adequate water supply or sanitation infrastructure — conditions that make disease control far more difficult. At least five sites have recorded Ebola deaths. In Kigonze, for example, seven safe and dignified burials have already taken place, and a community awareness campaign has been launched to address local reluctance toward health protocols.
Beyond the security crisis, hunger is also fuelling dangerous movement. The World Food Programme (WFP) highlights cases such as that of Jacques, a displaced father now living in Béni after fleeing fighting in Bukavu, who shares a two-week food ration among 14 people. His five-year-old daughter has already died from Ebola, and his wife remains in isolation.
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