The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak has become the country’s largest and deadliest on record, with 7,022 confirmed cases and 3,398 deaths recorded as of September 10. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, has a case fatality rate of 48.4 percent.
The government says the epidemic is now ‘under control’ and has passed its peak. It says the country’s 17th Ebola outbreak peaked at the beginning of the third week of August 2026, with transmission slowing in some areas.
The World Health Organization has offered a different assessment. In its latest weekly report, the WHO said the outbreak “remains uncontrolled and increasingly heterogeneous”. It added: “The outbreak is increasingly geographically heterogeneous rather than showing a uniform decline.”
The difference matters because the outbreak has spread across 62 health zones in seven provinces. Some zones have reported no new cases for 21 days, according to information on regional transmission patterns. Yet the WHO’s assessment indicates that declines in those areas do not establish a nationwide fall in transmission.
Jean-Jacques Mbungani Mbanda, a former Congolese health minister, also warned against treating lower case numbers in some places as proof that the outbreak has been controlled everywhere.
The epidemic has grown at a pace far faster than the country’s previous major Ebola outbreak. It passed 1,000 confirmed cases within 40 days of response activation. The 2018 Ebola outbreak in DRC took approximately 235 days to reach more than 1,000 cases.
The previous record outbreak recorded 3,317 cases between 2018 and 2020. The present crisis has now exceeded that total and ranks second only to the 2014-2016 West African outbreak. It is also one of the fastest-growing Ebola epidemics ever recorded.
The WHO estimates that 60 per cent of deaths occurred outside treatment centres, a measure that points to the challenge of identifying and treating patients across affected communities. More than 1,360 people have recovered.
Uganda reported Ebola cases at the same time that the DRC declared its outbreak. Cases have also been reported in France.
It remains unclear whether the reported decline in some parts of the DRC marks a sustained peak or whether transmission will rise again in affected health zones. The outlook is also uncertain in the seventh province and in newly affected areas, where the WHO has warned that the pattern of spread remains uneven.
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