20 SEP 2026 — The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest the country has ever recorded, and it is still growing. By mid-September it had passed 7,000 confirmed cases, with close to half of those infected dying. The pathogen is not the Ebola virus most people have heard of; it is Bundibugyo, a different member of the same family, and until this year it had caused two small outbreaks in nearly twenty years.
What the numbers show
The two authoritative counts come from different dates, and the dates matter. The World Health Organization reported on 10 September that the DRC had 6,757 confirmed cases and 3,267 deaths as of 7 September, a case fatality ratio of 48.3 per cent, with 1,590 people recovered. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, updating on 18 September, put the total at 7,475 confirmed cases and 3,605 deaths as of 16 September, a ratio of 48.2 per cent. That is roughly 700 further confirmed cases in nine days. The outbreak was declared on 15 May and reached 2,000 deaths within 86 days of that declaration.
Where it is spreading
Ituri province carries most of it: 5,792 cases and 2,642 deaths, with North Kivu next. WHO described transmission dynamics as variable across locations, with ongoing geographical expansion and sustained increases in some health zones.
The affected area widened over the northern summer. WHO counted 61 health zones across six provinces in early September; the ECDC update counts 62 of 167 health zones across seven.
Those are eastern provinces with a long history of armed conflict. That context sits behind every figure here. Outbreak response in the region has repeatedly been interrupted by insecurity, so the case counts are what surveillance managed to confirm, not a census of infections.
Two counts, two dates
The gap between the WHO and ECDC figures is not a disagreement. It is nine days of a growing epidemic. That is why a single number quoted without its date is close to useless here.
The same applies to reporting around the outbreak. Commentary published in June, when the confirmed total was in the hundreds, is still circulating; its figures were accurate when written.
The trajectory, taken from successive official counts, runs from 3,626 confirmed cases at the end of July to 4,381 on 9 August, 6,757 on 7 September and 7,475 on 16 September.
What ended, and where
Uganda's side of the outbreak is over. Twenty cases were reported there between May and June, two of them fatal, and eighteen people recovered. The two bodies give different end dates: WHO's situation reporting put the declaration at 28 July, and the ECDC records it as 25 August. We have not resolved which marks the formal declaration.
Three patients were evacuated to Europe: two to Germany, in May and July, and one to France in June. All three recovered.
The outbreak in the DRC continues. It prompted the WHO Director-General to declare a public health emergency of international concern on 17 May.
Why the risk elsewhere is low
The ECDC assesses the risk of importation into the EU and EEA as very low, adding that while sporadic importations cannot be excluded, multiple independent importations are very unlikely even under a pessimistic scenario.
Bundibugyo spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is already symptomatic. It concentrates among carers, family members and health workers rather than travelling easily along transport routes.
The case fatality ratio near 48 per cent describes something narrower than it appears. It is the proportion of confirmed cases who died, in a setting where confirmation requires reaching a laboratory. The denominator is the part that conflict and distance make unreliable.
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