{"id":39049,"date":"2026-07-08T08:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T06:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=39049"},"modified":"2026-07-08T08:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T06:05:09","slug":"drc-number-of-confirmed-ebola-cases-rises-to-1-708","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/drc-number-of-confirmed-ebola-cases-rises-to-1-708\/","title":{"rendered":"DRC number of confirmed Ebola cases rises to 1 708"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has risen to 1 708, including 580 deaths, according to the latest government data released this Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The update comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns that the outbreak continues to intensify across the conflict-hit eastern provinces, with health officials fearing the true scale of transmission remains hidden.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>International health agencies are facing severe operational hurdles because the current epidemic is driven by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus strain, rather than the more common Zaire strain. This has complicated the medical response, as existing certified Ebola vaccines and treatments are not effective against the Bundibugyo variant, forcing scientists to launch rapid clinical trials on the ground to identify effective therapeutics.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Compounding the crisis is a high rate of community transmission, with the WHO reporting that over 90% of investigated deaths have occurred outside of medical facilities. Health workers note that ongoing armed conflict and deep-seated community mistrust in the hotspot zones of Ituri and North Kivu are severely delaying case detection and isolation efforts, allowing the virus to continue spreading undetected across porous regional borders.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters\/ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34548,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-39049","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 1 708","published_date":"2026-07-08 07:38:21","news_description":"Number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 1 708","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39050,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39049\/revisions\/39050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}