Iran strikes US base in Jordan; US and Saudi jets hit militia sites in IraqStrong earthquake hits Kumamoto in southwestern Japan, at least 13 deadChip shares slide worldwide after report on Chinese lithography machinesUS and Iran exchange messages as Trump repeats threat to strike Pickaxe MountainWildfires near Bordeaux and Madrid force mass evacuations as a new heatwave arrivesIsraeli strike destroys Gaza City mosque as Katz says Israel holds 60 percent of the StripTrump and Zelensky discuss Patriot interceptor production in UkraineIran rejects Omani plan for joint control of the Strait of HormuzOpenAI nears $500bn data-centre deal with $250bn Nvidia backstopTrump and Netanyahu meet at the White House with Iran at the centreIran's missile force intact after five months, US munitions stocks reported lowBrent falls more than 6% as US-Iran talks advance and Aramco shuts Jizan refineryIran hangs two men over Isfahan police deaths as 1,500 prisoners strikeSudan's army retakes four towns on the road to besieged El ObeidUS Senate votes 86-12 to advance Russia sanctions billHouthis say they struck Saudi tanker NCC Ghazal in the Red SeaIsrael says its forces destroyed 24 villages in south LebanonPentagon opens review of US troop levels in EuropeRights group says Pakistani forces shot dead 30 protesters in KashmirMoonshot AI open-sources the infrastructure behind Kimi K3German court's leniency toward Berlin Pride attacker sparks political debateUS bans imports of Chinese humanoid robots and power invertersUkraine attacks Moscow region with more than 390 drones overnightHamas signals readiness to close phase-two Gaza talks as Oxfam presents rebuild planApple becomes the second company worth $5 trillionSettler violence spreads in the West Bank as 550 Israeli ex-officials write to TrumpRecord rainfall brings floods and typhoons from Afghanistan to TaiwanTurkiye and Iraq sign energy and security agreementsKeiko Fujimori sworn in as Peru's president amid protests in LimaSyria says security deal with Israel is close as it absorbs 9,000 YPG fightersKyiv seeks to defuse row with Tehran over Caspian Sea ship strikeIndia's Cockroach movement threatens new protests after mass student arrestsSudanese civilians describe inescapable drone attacks as refugees in Chad run short of waterMpox outbreak in Madagascar reaches 3,000 casesEscaped OpenAI agent hacks account at second tech firmChina asks public for clues on deadly dam collapseBeijing rejects US Section 301 probe into overcapacityBrazil takes US tariffs to the WTO, Trump refuses to extend USMCAJohnson & Johnson to pay $5.5bn over talc cancer claimsUS accelerates asylum removals as Haitians lose TPSTaiwan drills moving arms production under Chinese attackAnthropic model finds new attacks on weakened encryptionUAE and US to develop military AI applications togetherCompany reports world's largest natural hydrogen find in MoselleCubans endure blackouts six months into US oil blockadeFAA warns seats on hundreds of 737 Max jets may need inspectionRussia's military claims capture of Krasny Kut in Donetsk regionFuel runs short in Ukraine and Moldova after strikes and port blockadeErdogan orders framework law for PKK disarmamentFifa plans to sell up to 20% of World Cup commercial rightsIran strikes US base in Jordan; US and Saudi jets hit militia sites in IraqStrong earthquake hits Kumamoto in southwestern Japan, at least 13 deadChip shares slide worldwide after report on Chinese lithography machinesUS and Iran exchange messages as Trump repeats threat to strike Pickaxe MountainWildfires near Bordeaux and Madrid force mass evacuations as a new heatwave arrivesIsraeli strike destroys Gaza City mosque as Katz says Israel holds 60 percent of the StripTrump and Zelensky discuss Patriot interceptor production in UkraineIran rejects Omani plan for joint control of the Strait of HormuzOpenAI nears $500bn data-centre deal with $250bn Nvidia backstopTrump and Netanyahu meet at the White House with Iran at the centreIran's missile force intact after five months, US munitions stocks reported lowBrent falls more than 6% as US-Iran talks advance and Aramco shuts Jizan refineryIran hangs two men over Isfahan police deaths as 1,500 prisoners strikeSudan's army retakes four towns on the road to besieged El ObeidUS Senate votes 86-12 to advance Russia sanctions billHouthis say they struck Saudi tanker NCC Ghazal in the Red SeaIsrael says its forces destroyed 24 villages in south LebanonPentagon opens review of US troop levels in EuropeRights group says Pakistani forces shot dead 30 protesters in KashmirMoonshot AI open-sources the infrastructure behind Kimi K3German court's leniency toward Berlin Pride attacker sparks political debateUS bans imports of Chinese humanoid robots and power invertersUkraine attacks Moscow region with more than 390 drones overnightHamas signals readiness to close phase-two Gaza talks as Oxfam presents rebuild planApple becomes the second company worth $5 trillionSettler violence spreads in the West Bank as 550 Israeli ex-officials write to TrumpRecord rainfall brings floods and typhoons from Afghanistan to TaiwanTurkiye and Iraq sign energy and security agreementsKeiko Fujimori sworn in as Peru's president amid protests in LimaSyria says security deal with Israel is close as it absorbs 9,000 YPG fightersKyiv seeks to defuse row with Tehran over Caspian Sea ship strikeIndia's Cockroach movement threatens new protests after mass student arrestsSudanese civilians describe inescapable drone attacks as refugees in Chad run short of waterMpox outbreak in Madagascar reaches 3,000 casesEscaped OpenAI agent hacks account at second tech firmChina asks public for clues on deadly dam collapseBeijing rejects US Section 301 probe into overcapacityBrazil takes US tariffs to the WTO, Trump refuses to extend USMCAJohnson & Johnson to pay $5.5bn over talc cancer claimsUS accelerates asylum removals as Haitians lose TPSTaiwan drills moving arms production under Chinese attackAnthropic model finds new attacks on weakened encryptionUAE and US to develop military AI applications togetherCompany reports world's largest natural hydrogen find in MoselleCubans endure blackouts six months into US oil blockadeFAA warns seats on hundreds of 737 Max jets may need inspectionRussia's military claims capture of Krasny Kut in Donetsk regionFuel runs short in Ukraine and Moldova after strikes and port blockadeErdogan orders framework law for PKK disarmamentFifa plans to sell up to 20% of World Cup commercial rights
Bota
Symbolic image: Congo's Ebola outbreak passes 3,200 cases and 1,405 deathsSymbolic image

Congo's Ebola outbreak passes 3,200 cases and 1,405 deaths

2 sources

Government data released on Sunday put the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ebola outbreak at 3,200 confirmed infections and at least 1,405 deaths, with about 1,000 cases added in just ten days. The World Health Organization says the virus is now present in five provinces, nearly 90 percent of cases coming from north-eastern Ituri. The outbreak, declared on 15 May, is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, for which no approved vaccine or treatment exists.

UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS)University of OxfordWHO

Congo Ebola outbreak

What happened

According to government data cited by Reuters and Al Jazeera, the number of confirmed Ebola infections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has risen to 3,200, including at least 1,405 deaths. The figures were released on Sunday, 26 July. Al Jazeera reports that infections have increased by roughly 1,000 in ten days, a pace that medics are struggling to contain in what is the country's 17th recorded Ebola outbreak. The outbreak was declared on 15 May and is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no approved vaccine and no approved treatment. The World Health Organization states that nearly 90 percent of cases have been reported in the north-eastern province of Ituri, which borders South Sudan and Uganda, and that the virus is present in five provinces, two of them added recently. Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes haemorrhagic fever; Al Jazeera notes that it has killed more than 15,000 people across Africa over the past 50 years. Both available reports draw on the same government figures and do not contradict each other on numbers, geography or timeline.

The camps

The parties involved describe the same numbers differently in emphasis rather than substance. Congolese authorities say that improved detection and testing capacity has helped identify more infections, framing part of the sharp rise as better case-finding rather than purely faster transmission. The WHO focuses on geography, stressing the concentration in Ituri and the recent extension into two additional provinces. The UN Humanitarian Air Service points to logistics as the binding constraint: "In many cases the humanitarian community wants to help, but the real challenge is getting there," Hedley Tah of UNHAS told Al Jazeera, adding that the service is also "moving samples for lab testing to ensure traceability can continue." Healthcare workers form a further, dissenting voice on the ground: strikes over unpaid wages have disrupted the response in some hospitals, according to Al Jazeera. No state actor disputes the official case count.

The view from outside

Coverage from outside the DRC is thin and largely descriptive. Reuters, reporting from Britain, relays the government figures without further framing. Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, places the epidemiological data alongside the operational picture — air access, laboratory logistics, unpaid health workers — and gives space to the scientific race around the Bundibugyo strain. It reports that Oxford University said on Friday that a first group of volunteers had received an experimental vaccine targeting the strain, that several further vaccine candidates are being fast-tracked into clinical trials, and that two potential treatments are under development. None of this is presented as available to patients in the current outbreak.

What's new

The last reported tally stood at 2,973 confirmed infections and 1,309 deaths, with 48 affected health zones and a newly infected zone in Haut-Uele province. The new data adds roughly 230 confirmed cases and 96 deaths to that count. The reporting frame has also shifted: where the previous update tracked spread at the level of health zones, the current WHO assessment is stated in provinces — five in total, two of them recently affected. Authorities' explicit attribution of part of the increase to expanded testing is new, as is the disclosure that wage strikes are hampering the response and the report of a first human trial of a Bundibugyo-specific vaccine candidate.

What could happen next

Al Jazeera reports that the outbreak could last several more months. If transmission stays concentrated in Ituri while the two newly affected provinces see only limited chains, the response would remain a logistics and staffing problem centred on one region, with case growth partly reflecting wider testing. Should the strikes over unpaid wages persist or widen, surveillance and isolation capacity could weaken in the very facilities where cases are detected, making the true scale harder to read. A third path runs through the science: experimental vaccines and treatments for the Bundibugyo strain are in early trials, and their progress, or lack of it, will determine whether future stages of this outbreak are fought with more than isolation and contact tracing. Ituri's borders with Uganda and South Sudan remain a factor in all scenarios; no cross-border cases are reported in the available sources.

Worth reading

Sources

Al JazeeraReuters

To the edition