DRC’s fast-growing Ebola outbreak spreads to sixth province

People in protective clothing lower the coffin of an Ebola victim into a grave in Bunia, Ituri province, on Tuesday. Photograph: Dieudonne Dirole/AP View image in fullscreen People in protective clothing lower the coffin of an Ebola victim into a grave in Bunia, Ituri province, on Tuesday. Photograph: Dieudonne Dirole/AP DRC’s fast-growing Ebola outbreak spreads to sixth province Man dies in Bas-Uele after travelling from Haut-Uele, as head of WHO says outbreak on track to be deadliest ever The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a sixth province, officials have said, a day after the head of the World Health Organization said the outbreak was on track to surpass the deadliest in history, which killed at least 11,000 people more than a decade ago. The current outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures released on Tuesday. At the same point in the 2014-16 outbreak in west Africa, the previous most deadly outbreak, 755 cases had been recorded, according to WHO data. Jean Kaseya, the director general of Africa CDC, said on Thursday that a death had been recorded in the previously unaffected Bas-Uele province. The man had travelled from Isiro, in Haut-Uele province, to Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, where he died, Kaseya said. There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus that is responsible for the current outbreak. The death toll has been reached almost three times faster than in the 2014-16 outbreak. On Wednesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said the current outbreak would surpass that one based on its current pace. Six of DRC’s 26 provinces have now been affected, mainly those along the country’s north-eastern border. More than 3,400 of the cases have been recorded in Ituri province, where the outbreak was first reported. Uganda has reported 20 cases, all in the capital, Kampala. The last case there was reported on 21 June and no community transmission has been recorded. The DRC outbreak is unfolding amid strikes , global development aid cuts, threats , anger from long-traumatised communities, and misinformation claiming that Ebola is not real. Ebola virus behind massive outbreak in DRC could be mutating, officials say Health workers at the Nizi treatment centre in Ituri province went on strike on Thursday, leading to the temporary closure of the centre, saying they had not been paid for three months.