Unicef says Ebola death rate in DRC reaches 30% to 50%
unicef said the Ebola outbreak death rate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is between 30% and 50% as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Kinshasa on Thursday to support containment efforts. The WHO director general said he was making a direct appeal to armed groups in the region to declare a ceasefire.
"It’s huge. It means that up to five out of 10 people are likely to die," Anaïs Legand said in Geneva, describing the revised estimate as based on confirmed cases. The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed Ebola deaths and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, with more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases.
Tedros in Kinshasa
Tedros said, "That thing can be stopped," and added in a separate message to Congolese citizens, "Together, we will overcome this outbreak" and "everything in my power to help." He also said, "Conflict and displacement make everything harder," as he described the outbreak in eastern DRC.
His trip to Ituri province was due on Friday but was pushed back by a day. The outbreak is the 17th recorded Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the disease was first identified in 1976 and has averaged a 50% death rate across outbreaks.
Ituri province outbreak
The current outbreak is centered in north-east Ituri province, where armed-group conflict and displacement are complicating containment. More than 245,000 people have fled eastern DRC to neighbouring countries since January 2025, according to the UN refugee agency, and the WHO warned that border closures could drive up informal crossings and make monitoring harder.
A patient recovered from Ebola and was discharged from a health centre in the DRC on 27 May after two negative tests, the first confirmed recovery in the outbreak. Uganda has recorded one Ebola death and eight additional cases, and it announced on Wednesday that it would immediately close its border with the DRC.
Uganda border closure
Jean Kaseya, head of the African Union’s health agency, has joined the wider response as the outbreak spreads across a region already under pressure from displacement. Tedros said, "I am making a direct appeal to all warring parties in this region: please declare a ceasefire. No cause, no conflict, no grievance is worth condemning innocent people to death from a preventable disease."
For families in Ituri and along the Uganda border, the next pressure point is the effort to keep cases visible enough to trace while movement across the frontier stays in check. Tedros’s delayed trip to Ituri now becomes the clearest test of whether the response can reach the people closest to the outbreak.
