Whereabouts of nearly 300 people with Ebola unknown in DRC

Health workers disinfect a coffin at Kigonze displaced persons camp in Bunia, DRC, 18 June. More than 1 million people live in similar camps to which health workers have no access. Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters View image in fullscreen Health workers disinfect a coffin at Kigonze displaced persons camp in Bunia, DRC, 18 June. More than 1 million people live in similar camps to which health workers have no access. Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters Whereabouts of nearly 300 people with Ebola unknown in DRC Fears over ‘huge, huge community transmission’ as modelling predicts thousands of cases and deaths by September The whereabouts of almost 300 people who have tested positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is currently unknown, according to Africa’s top public health official. The humanitarian crisis amid the conflict in the affected areas means more than 1 million people are living in camps to which health workers have no access, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Thursday. His comments came as projections from the World Health Organization’s Africa regional office, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal , predicted there will be about 8,210 cases and 1,420 deaths by mid-September. View image in fullscreen Dz'na Lipe Jean‑Marie, secretary of Kpangba displacement camp in the DRC, holds an Ebola awareness session on 13 June 2026. Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters The modelling suggested the outbreak had a 70% chance of spreading to neighbouring South Sudan in the coming weeks. There have been 1,118 confirmed cases and 291 deaths to date in the DRC, as well as 20 cases and two deaths in neighbouring Uganda . On Wednesday, France announced that a doctor who had been working in the DRC had tested positive on his return. His employer, medical NGO Alima, said they were “ working to understand how the contamination may have occurred”. The race to combat Ebola: what vaccines and treatments are being developed and how long will it take? Read more Figures on the number of patients who have recovered and those in current treatment, as well as deaths, indicate 297 people who tested positive are unaccounted for. “This is a concern that we have. Where are these people?” asked Kaseya. DRC authorities said on Thursday that anyone who had been in affected provinces would need to wait 21 days before they could travel onwards. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, is the largest on record for five weeks after declaration . At the same stage, the West Africa outbreak of 2014 to 2016, which infected more than 28,000 people and killed more than 11,000, had 239 cases and 160 deaths. Computer models were used by the WHO to simulate three trajectories – low, central or high transmissibility. There are signs that the DRC’s response is working to slow transmission, the authors said, and current figures are most in line with