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03-07-2026
KINSHASA: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) says confirmed Ebola cases in the country have reached 1,307 and include 377 deaths.
In an update issued late on Monday, the country said the confirmed cases have been recorded in three provinces Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu.
The announcement comes as media reported that a case has been detected in a fourth province. A source at the DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) quoted by AFP said the viral haemorrhagic fever has spread to Haut-Uele, which borders South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The source said the case there was detected after an infected person travelled from Bunia, Ituri’s capital, to Haut-Uele.
That person has since died, another health source told media.
Authorities are now trying to trace the chain of transmission and identify contacts.
Its spread to Haut-Uele means the DRC’s entire northeast, home to about 15 million people is now affected.
The conflict-hit province of Ituri is the epicentre of the country’s latest Ebola outbreak, its 17th, which started in May.
In many cases, the virus has spread at funerals, where the highly infectious bodies of Ebola victims are handled.
For weeks, aid workers, facing mistrust among local communities, have struggled to plan safe burials in affected areas to prevent contact with the dead.
In the DRC, funerals often last several days, during which family members and friends touch the body of the deceased.
Reporting from a treatment centre in Rwampara in Ituri province, journalist Catherine Wambua-Soi said health workers often lack sufficient equipment.
“These centres have been attacked several times. Last month, tents here were set on fire by an angry mob. Some Congolese still distrust those trying to help,” she said.
“They need more of everything: protective gear, medicines, rapid test kits … and body bags.”
On Saturday, the government issued a ban on public gatherings in four provinces, including the country’s capital, Kinshasa, as it continues to battle the spread of the outbreak.
That order was issued before a planned protest in Kinshasa on July 8 against constitutional reform, and opposition figures have called the ban “politically motivated.”
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has banned mass gatherings in the capital, Kinshasa, and in the provinces of Tshopo, Haut-Uele, and Bas-Uele to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus, Radio Okapi reported on Monday, June 29.
As ANTARA reported, Congolese Interior Minister Jacquemain Shabani announced on June 27 the decision to the governors of the affected provinces in a ministry circular.
Shabani explained that the restrictions were imposed due to the increasing health risks associated with the spread of the Ebola virus in some areas of the country.
However, the opposition considers the decision unconstitutional. They accuse the policy of being “laboratory engineered” by the president’s supporting party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress.
In May 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda as a public health emergency posing a risk to other countries. The organization assessed the risk of further spread in the region as high.
On Monday, the Congolese Ministry of Communications and Media said the death toll from the Ebola outbreak in the country reached 377 with 1,307 confirmed cases.
(Int’l Monitoring Desk)
