Congo's Ebola outbreak has topped 11,000 cases, the government said on Wednesday, November 11, a stark figure that underscores the severity of the situation as the country grapples with the relentless spread of the disease, the Associated Press reported from Bunia. According to the latest health ministry data, 11,042 people have been infected with the virus, which has now killed 5,387 — nearly half of those infected — in what has become Congo's deadliest Ebola outbreak.

Source: Associated Press via KDLG/NPR

The same figures were reported independently by Al Jazeera, which put the toll at 11,000-plus cases with 5,387 deaths, and by Euronews, which reported more than 5,000 deaths as the outbreak passed 11,000 cases. Congo's National Institute of Public Health figures, reported by News Central, put recoveries at about 2,990 patients.

Source: Al Jazeera

The outbreak, Congo's 17th, was declared in mid-May — on May 15, after laboratory analysis identified the Bundibugyo virus in Ituri Province — and has since spread to eight of the country's 26 provinces: Ituri, Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Tshopo, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, Sud-Ubangi and Nord-Ubangi. The Bundibugyo strain responsible has no known vaccine or treatment developed specifically for it, and it kills about half of the people it infects.

By global measure, the outbreak is now the second-largest and second-deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, behind only the 2014–2016 West African epidemic, which infected more than 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000. Cases linked to the wider regional spread have been reported beyond Congo, giving this outbreak the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date, according to the reporting.

Congolese authorities have struggled to contain the spread because of armed conflicts in the east, a health system in crisis, poor roads, and violence from residents fuelled by mistrust and misinformation, the AP reported. Many deaths have occurred outside treatment centres, which makes contact tracing and safe burials harder and lets chains of transmission continue unseen.

The dated surveillance snapshots show how fast the count has climbed: the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported 10,990 confirmed cases and 5,354 deaths as of November 9, using data through November 8, while the World Health Organization's November 6 bulletin recorded 10,668 confirmed cases and 5,198 deaths as of November 3. Outbreak figures are updated at different times by different authorities and are reconciled by national officials, so the counts are best read as dated snapshots of the same rising outbreak.

With no Bundibugyo-specific vaccine yet approved, trials are the main scientific track running alongside the response. Read the earlier story: WHO adds two Bundibugyo Ebola vaccines to the Congo trial

Earlier this month the World Health Organization approved clinical trials of two new Ebola vaccines, with results expected in early 2027 — which means there is no immediate vaccine answer for this strain. What happens next depends on whether the response can reach the conflict-affected zones where transmission continues: until then, each new government count has set a new record for the deadliest outbreak in Congo's history.