Until now, three Congolese provinces had been affected: Ituri (bordering Uganda and South Sudan), neighboring North Kivu, and South Kivu. Twenty cases including two deaths have been recorded in Uganda.

Haut-Uélé is now the fourth Congolese province affected. The region, neighboring Ituri, borders South Sudan and also the Central African Republic.

According to a source at the National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), an infected person traveled from Ituri to Haut-Uélé, bringing the case into the region. A health source said the patient died.

Health authorities are trying to trace the transmission chain and identify probable contacts. In many cases, the disease has been transmitted during funeral rites. The body of an Ebola victim is extremely contagious.

For weeks, humanitarian workers on the ground have been trying, despite strong public mistrust, to organize burials in infected areas that adhere to strict sanitary measures to prevent any human contact with the bodies of the deceased.

In the DRC as elsewhere in Africa, funeral rites often last several days. Families and relatives normally touch the body of the deceased during these ceremonies.

These regions are also plagued by armed group violence

Incidents have been reported in recent weeks at several health centers, often caused by angry community members demanding the bodies of their loved ones. Haut-Uélé shares the same characteristics as Ituri: these are lands located at the borders of several countries and rich in gold, the combination making them areas of intense exchange and transit, which favors the spread of the virus.

These regions are also plagued by armed group violence. In Ituri, massacres have occurred regularly for about ten years, perpetrated by community militias or the ADF armed group affiliated with the Islamic State.

ADF has recently made incursions into Haut-Uélé, also troubled by violence from armed groups from neighboring countries. The security context in which the Ebola epidemic continues to swell is a difficulty for the deployment of the health response, which was launched late. Humanitarians and scientists say health authorities were slow to detect the virus.

According to epidemiological investigations still to be confirmed, the first suspected deaths date back to January. In Ituri, efforts have recently been strengthened, but health facilities, which often operate with few resources in one of the poorest countries in the world, still lack equipment and basic supplies such as protective kits and chlorine.

Ebola treatment centers set up with teams from WHO and several NGOs are already saturated, with an occupancy rate of over 138%, according to the National Institute of Public Health (INSP). So far, 78 health workers have been infected, 18 of whom have died.

Experts and health authorities agree that more than six weeks after the official declaration of the epidemic, the peak has not yet been reached, and the crisis could last between six months and a year. Ebola, which is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.

The deadliest epidemic in the DRC killed nearly 2,300 people out of 3,500 cases recorded between 2018 and 2020.