Ebola epidemic death toll surpasses 4,000 in Democratic Republic of the Congo

On October 2, 2026, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported that the death toll from the current Ebola outbreak has reached 4,018. This surge marks the epidemic as the most severe and deadliest in the nation's history, surpassing the scale of the 2018-2020 outbreak. The virus, identified as the Bundibugyo strain, has infected approximately 8,300 people across seven provinces.

Globally, this is the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record, trailing only the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak that resulted in over 11,000 deaths across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Despite the high mortality rate, over 2,000 patients have successfully recovered from the infection.

Health authorities continue to struggle to contain the virus's spread across the seven affected provinces. However, both the Congolese government and the United Nations noted in September that there are early signs of a reduction in new infections within specific areas of the Ituri province, where the current outbreak first originated.