00:005,000 dead. No vaccine. And a virus spreading faster than the teams trying to stop it.
00:09Congo's Ebola outbreak has crossed a devastating milestone. Tonight, why this one is different.
00:16Health officials in Congo say more than 5,000 people have now died from more than 10,300 confirmed cases
00:23since the outbreak was declared in mid-May.
00:26That makes it Congo's deadliest Ebola outbreak ever, and the second largest in history, behind only West Africa's 2014 epidemic,
00:35which killed more than 11,000.
00:38Congo's previous deadliest outbreak, in 2018 to 2020, killed 2,299. This one passed that total in August and has
00:50not slowed down.
00:51The epicenter is Ituri province, in the northeast of the country. A region torn by conflict, where health workers cannot
01:00always reach the people who need them most.
01:03Eight of Congo's 26 provinces are now affected, across 67 of its 178 health zones, and 50 zones are still
01:11reporting active cases.
01:12The east carries the heaviest burden. Ituri and North Kivu together, nearly 9,800 cases, and close to 4,800
01:24deaths.
01:25And here is the fact that should alarm everyone. The strain behind this outbreak is called Bundy Bugio, and there
01:32is no approved vaccine for it, and no approved treatment either.
01:37Patients are treated for symptoms while vaccine trials are underway, but right now, no shot can stop this strain before
01:44it strikes.
01:45Nearly half of those infected have died. Around 2,788 have recovered, but for thousands of families, help came too
01:55late.
01:56Ebola spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, through blood, through vomit, and it strikes suddenly,
02:04with vomiting and diarrhea, that can lead to organ failure.
02:08Some patients develop bleeding, and about one-third of the recorded deaths happened outside treatment centers, before the victims could
02:15even be tested.
02:24That means four out of five new infections are appearing among people nobody was watching, nobody warned, and nobody tested
02:32in time.
02:33The World Health Organization says the response needs a continued scale-up of key control measures, greater access to affected
02:41areas, and community outreach.
02:44Dr. Patrick Otim, of the World Health Organization, put it this way.
02:48It is a very tragic milestone, because it is just not a number. It is families and communities that have
02:54been devastated by this outbreak.
02:57Conflict makes everything harder. Fighting in eastern Congo, including by the M23 group, restricts where health workers can go, and
03:05how fast they can trace, test, and treat.
03:07Some health workers have been attacked while responding, and every closed road is another chance for the virus to move
03:15unseen.
03:17Genetic sequencing suggests the virus may have been circulating since February, months before the outbreak was declared in May.
03:24Though experts stress that picture is still being pieced together.
03:28Cases have also been confirmed beyond Congo's borders, a reminder that in a connected region, an outbreak anywhere can become
03:36a threat everywhere.
03:37The United Nations warns this outbreak is taking lives at a much faster rate than before, and that speed makes
03:45the next few weeks critical.
03:47What happens next? More testing, more tracing, more treatment centers, and more access to where the virus spreads fastest.
04:125,000 lives lost, and no vaccine yet. The race is to trace this virus faster than it spreads.
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