The deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded is still growing. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has now confirmed 5,794 cases and 2,786 deaths since the outbreak began in mid-May, with two new health zones reporting infections as of Friday.
According to Al Jazeera, the two newly affected zones are Biena and Manguredjipa, both in North Kivu province in eastern DRC. The fatality rate in those areas runs higher than the national average of 48 percent, in part because response efforts have been delayed. The outbreak has now spread across 60 health zones in total.
The DRC government's Ministry of Health described the spread as faster than any Ebola outbreak on record. The outbreak is on pace to surpass the 2014 to 2016 West Africa epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people and remains the deadliest in the disease's history.
The particular strain driving the current outbreak is called Bundibugyo, a rarer type of Ebola. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for it. That means aid workers cannot rely on the tools used during past outbreaks and must instead fall back on contact tracing, patient isolation, and early diagnosis to slow transmission.
Armed conflict in the affected provinces has complicated nearly every aspect of the response. Displacement, attacks on medical personnel and facilities, a mobile population, and a lack of basic infrastructure have all slowed containment efforts. Those conditions have allowed the virus to move faster than trackers can follow it.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, opened a new treatment center in Beni, also in North Kivu, on Friday. Beni has recorded 122 confirmed cases and 87 deaths, with a fatality rate close to 69 percent, one of the highest anywhere in the country. The new facility is intended to speed up treatment and strengthen contact tracing in what MSF called one of the hardest-hit areas.
Bed shortages have been one of the clearest obstacles to controlling the outbreak. MSF currently has 1,400 staff in DRC and operates treatment centers with a total of 400 beds across the country. The new Beni center is meant to add capacity in the northeast, where the need is most acute.
MSF said in a statement that the new center "enables the rapid treatment of patients, strengthens contact tracing and supports the health authorities in their efforts to contain the spread of the virus." The group also noted that early treatment improves survival rates and cuts transmission within households and communities.
The outbreak began in mid-May and has not slowed. With the addition of Biena and Manguredjipa, it now touches 60 health zones, and the government figures released Friday offered no indication the spread was leveling off.