The confirmed Ebola case count in the Democratic Republic of Congo is closing in on 3,000, after health officials reviewed data from two of the most severely affected provinces and added more than 300 new cases to the national tally.
According to the daily report released by the central African nation’s public health institute, the confirmed case total stands at 2,905, with 1,269 people having lost their lives to the disease.
The number of confirmed deaths crossed the 1,000 mark in figures that were released late Wednesday.
The World Health Organization has cautioned that the true scale of the outbreak may be anywhere from two to four times larger than what official data currently reflects.
This marks Congo’s 17th Ebola outbreak, which was officially declared in mid-May — though experts believe the virus had already been spreading for several weeks before that announcement.
The outbreak is being caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, which carries a fatality rate of roughly 40%. There is currently no approved vaccine available to combat this strain.
Congo’s public health institute explained that the sharp increase reported Friday was primarily the result of reconciling case data from Ituri and North Kivu provinces with the national figures.
