Congo Ebola outbreak ‘global emergency’ as infections pass 5,000: WHO - Al Jazeera

The World Health Organization has declared the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ebola outbreak a global health emergency after cases surpassed 5,000, with more than 2,320 deaths recorded.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an emergency meeting on Tuesday that the epidemic is "far from being under control," spreading at an "unprecedented speed," and urged international assistance.
This is the DRC's seventeenth Ebola outbreak and its deadliest, exceeding the 2,299 deaths from the 2018 to 2020 outbreak.
The strain, known as Bundibugyo, has no approved vaccine or treatment, while response efforts are hampered by conflict in the mineral-rich country, misinformation, distrust of health workers, and cultural practices.
WHO medic Thierno Balde said motorbike riders, who transport patients and bodies, are now central to response efforts, with plans to recruit them as surveillance and response officers alongside hand-washing stations and disinfectant.
Officially declared on May 17, the outbreak actually began spreading in February according to genetic sequencing; the first volunteer received an experimental Oxford University vaccine in the United Kingdom last month, with hundreds of thousands of doses already produced.