The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has spread to a sixth province in the northeast of the country raising fears of further transmission across the region.<\/p>\n
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It comes as experts describe the outbreak as the fastest spreading on record.<\/p>\n
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The deadly disease has claimed more than 2 100 lives out of 4 500 cases recorded since mid-May.<\/p>\n
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The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a new case of Ebola in the DRC\u2019s northeastern province of Bas-Uele.<\/p>\n
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The patient was a man who had travelled from a province affected by Ebola to Buta the provincial capital of Bas-Uele, where he later died.<\/p>\n
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His death brings the number of provinces that have recorded Ebola cases to six.<\/p>\n
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The epicentre of the outbreak is in the northeastern province of Ituri where insecurity and displacement have hampered the response effort.<\/p>\n
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Community mistrust and the refusal by some people to heed health guidelines have further complicated the problem.<\/p>\n
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Many deaths reported within communities suggest that some families may not be promptly reporting sick relatives to health officials.<\/p>\n
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The World Health Organisation is now calling for greater community engagement to build trust and find cases faster.<\/p>\n
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The global body says the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is on track to surpass the West African one that killed more than 11 000 people between 2014 and 2016.<\/p>\n
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The virus circulating in the DRC is driven by the Bundibugyo strain for which there is currently no approved vaccine or treatment.<\/p>\n
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Scientists in the United Kingdom and Canada are conducting clinical trials for vaccines that have shown promising signs of reducing deaths.<\/p>\n
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–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34676,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-42657","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Ebola outbreak in the DRC has spread to a sixth province","published_date":"2026-08-15 08:09:49","news_description":"Ebola outbreak in the DRC has spread to a sixth province","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42657","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\/42657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42658,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42657\/revisions\/42658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}