Democratic Republic of Congo reports 676 Ebola cases, 136 deaths
The Democratic Republic of Congo has reported 676 confirmed ebola cases and 136 confirmed deaths as the Bundibugyo strain spread across 29 health zones in three eastern provinces. Ituri remains the epicenter with 629 cases, while North Kivu has 44 and South Kivu has three.
The latest tally shows the outbreak has moved beyond a single cluster and now stretches across a wider part of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, adding pressure to response teams already tracking infections across multiple health zones.
Ituri Leads The Case Count
Ituri’s 629 cases account for the bulk of the total. North Kivu’s 44 cases and South Kivu’s three cases show how far the outbreak has spread beyond the province that first carried most of the burden.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the outbreak spread to three new health zones since its previous update. That expansion matters because health-zone growth usually forces responders to widen surveillance, contact tracing, and isolation capacity at the same time.
Uganda Tracks Cross-Border Cases
Uganda has reported 19 confirmed cases and two deaths, and most of Uganda’s cases are linked to travel from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The cross-border link means the outbreak is no longer contained inside one national reporting line, even though the DRC still carries the largest caseload.
On Tuesday, the Democratic Republic of Congo said confirmed cases had risen to 598, including 115 deaths, and that 22 patients had recovered. The new total of 676 cases and 136 deaths shows how quickly the outbreak has advanced since that earlier count.
U.S. Travel Limits And Kenya Protests
The United States has announced temporary travel bans on people who do not have U.S. passports and who had been in affected countries in the three weeks before travel. The State Department said, “The department's highest priority and focus remain protecting the health of the American people and preventing this Ebola outbreak from reaching our shores,”.
In Kenya, protests continued against a planned U.S. Ebola quarantine facility, and a protester was reportedly shot dead by police in Nanyuki. That was the third reported death of a protester in Kenya tied to the backlash over the planned isolation facility, which has become part of the outbreak’s wider political fallout.
The next pressure point sits with the response footprint itself: 29 health zones, three eastern provinces, and a caseload that keeps climbing in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. Those numbers now define the scale of the response more than any single announcement does.
