Congo Ebola Deaths Reach 2,000 in Fastest-Growing Outbreak

At least 2,000 people have died among confirmed cases in Congo's Ebola outbreak, the fastest growing on record, according to the latest government data.

Figures published overnight into Tuesday showed 4,381 confirmed cases, including 2,011 deaths. A total of 704 patients are in admission and isolation.

The toll comes nearly three months after the outbreak was declared on May 15. It took about nine weeks to record the first 1,000 deaths and only around three weeks to record the next 1,000, an indication of how quickly the crisis is moving beyond the control of responders.

Health authorities have struggled to get help to remote localities because of rebel conflict, poor roads and work stoppages over pay. Many health workers have gone on strike to protest a lack of payment for their work since the outbreak was declared. Aid workers say the response, which has expanded across the five affected provinces, is being outpaced by the virus, and most new cases are being found outside the contacts being monitored.

The outbreak is already the second largest in history, behind only the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, which recorded more than 28,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths.

It also differs from most previous outbreaks because the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments. Clinical trials for both have begun in Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak.

The World Health Organization said Monday that the outbreak likely began in February, long before authorities detected it in one of Congo's most remote and vulnerable areas. The agency said some early cases were wrongly attributed to malaria and typhoid, and that early testing was conducted for the more common type of Ebola.

"Chasing the virus, the virus is ahead of us," Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the WHO regional director for Africa, told a news conference.

The first Ebola virus was identified in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now Congo. The current outbreak is the 17th — and largest — the Central African nation has faced.