--- title: "Congo’s Largest Ebola Outbreak Tops 4,000 Deaths, but Officials Fear Underreporting" description: "The toll stands at 8,300 infections with a 48.4% fatality rate, and an aid worker was evacuated to the Netherlands after testing positive" author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-02T20:52:54Z modified: 2026-10-03T05:42:13Z url: https://rews.cc/a/congo-s-largest-ebola-outbreak-tops-4-000-deaths-but-officia-adbf32 language: en tags: ["ebola", "drc", "health", "security", "africa-cdc", "world"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Congo’s Largest Ebola Outbreak Tops 4,000 Deaths, but Officials Fear Underreporting *The toll stands at 8,300 infections with a 48.4% fatality rate, and an aid worker was evacuated to the Netherlands after testing positive* By rews desk · October 2, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/congo-s-largest-ebola-outbreak-tops-4-000-deaths-but-officia-adbf32 ## In brief - Congo’s largest Ebola outbreak has reached 8,300 infections and 4,018 deaths, a 48.4% fatality rate, with 2,162 recoveries - A Doctors Without Borders staffer was evacuated to the Netherlands after testing positive; 50 health workers have died - Weekly cases and deaths are falling, but the Africa CDC warns that insecurity and resistance may be masking the outbreak - Violence has hit the response, from the killing of a ruling-party official to a burned transit center for Ebola patients - No vaccine exists for the Bundibugyo strain; the U.S. is releasing 237 million euros against the outbreak and France gave 13.4 million The largest Ebola outbreak in Congo’s history has killed 4,018 people among 8,300 confirmed infections, health officials said on Thursday, as the first sustained drop in new cases brought both hope that the epidemic is slowing and concern that the true toll is no longer being counted. The official figures, reported by Euronews and released at a briefing of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, give a fatality rate of 48.4 percent, with 2,162 people recovered. The outbreak, officially detected in mid-May, began in Ituri Province in the northeast and has spread to seven provinces in the north and east. The Kigali-backed rebel group M23 said on Friday that four deaths had been recorded among six cases in areas of North Kivu Province under its control. The virus has kept reaching the people fighting it. A staff member of Doctors Without Borders tested positive on Tuesday, Sept. 29, and was medically evacuated to the Netherlands, the aid group said in a statement on Thursday. Fifty health workers have died since the outbreak was declared in May, the Africa C.D.C. said. There are signs of a downturn. Eighteen health zones have gone more than 21 days without a new case. The 278 infections confirmed near the end of September were the lowest weekly count since mid-June, and weekly deaths now stand at 192, down from a peak of 364 in mid-August. But Wessam Mankoula, an epidemiologist with the Africa C.D.C., warned at the briefing that the falling figures might reflect underreporting rather than progress. “This curve doesn’t mean that the outbreak is totally under control, because we need to understand the reason for this falling,” he said. He cited the security situation and community resistance in the health zones of Katwa, Beni, Butembo, Nizi and Nia-Nia, which he said had kept surveillance teams from continuing their work there. Violence has repeatedly broken the response. On Sunday, a senior member of Congo’s ruling party was [beaten to death](https://rews.cc/a/mourners-bury-congo-official-killed-after-he-defended-ebola--bac9e2) in Nord-Kivu Province after he used a radio show to encourage measures to prevent infection. A contractor responsible for detecting cases was killed in an attack on a health facility in North Kivu, Congolese authorities said on Wednesday. In Ituri, clashes between local militias displaced more than 5,000 people in recent days, the United Nations said on Thursday, and a transit center for Ebola patients burned down on Tuesday after soldiers entered a site for displaced people, whose residents fled. Earlier in the outbreak, an angry crowd set fire to an Ebola treatment center after the authorities stopped residents from retrieving the body of a suspected victim for burial, according to Euronews. No vaccine or treatment has been approved for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus behind this outbreak. The first doses of Ervebo, [a vaccine proven against the more common Zaire strain](https://rews.cc/a/ebola-at-48-fatality-a-vaccine-for-the-wrong-strain-and-2-9--adf07c), have been administered in recent weeks to frontline staff volunteers as part of a clinical trial. The European Union is contributing 7.4 million euros toward developing vaccines and treatments with the World Health Organization, according to Euronews. France allocated 13.4 million euros to the Ebola response between January and July, with no indication that fresh humanitarian aid is coming, while the United States has announced it is releasing a further 237 million euros to combat the spread. Jean-Noel Barrot, the French foreign minister, was due in Bunia, the Ituri capital, on Friday to show Paris’s support for local authorities and humanitarian workers. ## Sources - [DR Congo Ebola outbreak tops 4,000 deaths as officials struggle to track trends](https://cidrap.umn.edu/ebola/dr-congo-ebola-cases-grow-deaths-top-4000-officials-struggle-ascertain-numbers-trends) — cidrap.umn.edu - [Find all the latest news about Democratic Republic Of Congo](https://euronews.com/news/africa/democratic-republic-of-congo) — euronews.com - [DR Congo Ebola outbreak killed more than 4,000: official figures](https://euronews.com/2026/10/02/dr-congo-ebola-outbreak-killed-more-than-4000-official-figures) — euronews.com