DR Congo Ebola deaths pass 4,000; Kenya, with no case, keeps border screening on

The death toll in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has passed 4,000, with 4,018 deaths and about 8,300 confirmed cases across seven provinces, according to figures reported by Al Jazeera on 2 October 2026 and by Xinhua on 3 October. Kenya has reported no confirmed case.

Xinhua, citing DRC authorities, reports a case fatality rate of 48.4 per cent, 2,162 recovered patients and 63 affected health zones. Twelve health zones have had no new cases for 42 days. It is the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the DRC and the second largest worldwide.

Health Minister Roger Kamba said: "We are no longer talking about outbreaks at the provincial level, but outbreaks concentrated in individual health zones." He added that the number of health zones reporting cases has decreased, though the situation "remains highly variable".

Other voices are more cautious. Al Jazeera reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned the epidemic is "far from over" and is on track to surpass the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people. Médecins Sans Frontières, quoted by Xinhua, warned that real death tolls are likely higher than reported because of gaps in surveillance and case detection.

The disease is caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus. WHO says no approved vaccines or specific treatments currently exist for it. The outbreak was declared in May 2026.

Al Jazeera reports, citing the United Nations, that a camp housing an Ebola transit centre on the outskirts of Bunia, capital of Ituri province, was burned by soldiers earlier this week as they looked for weapons, and that the incident forced 19,000 people to flee the camp. It quotes a UN statement that the challenge of halting the spread "just became even harder after a key transit centre for patients requiring treatment burned down in Ituri province".

Uganda confirmed imported cases in Kampala in May, and the WHO says the Ugandan Ministry of Health declared the end of its outbreak on 28 July, after 42 days without a new locally transmitted confirmed case. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists 21 confirmed and probable cases and three deaths in Uganda, with the last case confirmed on 21 June.

The WHO nonetheless assessed the risk for countries sharing land borders with countries reporting cases as high, citing population mobility linked to cross-border trade and mining.

Kenya's Ministry of Health said on 22 May that its four national reference laboratories were operating around the clock and that isolation and holding facilities had been activated in designated referral hospitals and border locations. On 25 June Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said, as reported by Dawan Africa, that Kenya had screened more than 140,000 travellers arriving from affected areas and investigated over 100 alerts, all negative, and that the country had recorded no confirmed case. On 14 September the Ministry of Interior and National Administration's Public Communication Division said, as reported by The Star, that no case of Ebola had been reported in Kenya and that all suspected cases tested so far had returned negative results.

A WHO report dated 9 September described training of 35 health workers at the Busia and Malaba One-Stop Border Posts and at Lwakhakha in Bungoma County. More than 3,000 people cross at Busia daily, and screening of small-scale traders there ran only from 08:00 to 18:00, with border stakeholders advocating round-the-clock screening. The report calls night-time screening a gap driven by staff numbers rather than capability.

China has sent medical expert teams to the DRC. The third team arrived in Kinshasa on 1 August 2026, according to a report carried by GlobalSecurity.org; a DRC health ministry representative said its arrival would provide strong support for epidemic surveillance, patient treatment and laboratory testing.