DRC's Deadliest Ebola Outbreak Is a Warning for Africa

Perhaps most disturbing is the speed at which people are dying. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that the epidemic was killing someone approximately every 30 minutes.

This is no longer simply a health crisis in one of Africa's most fragile countries. It is a test of how prepared the continent is to respond when an infectious disease moves faster than the systems designed to contain it.

The scale of the current epidemic becomes clearer when compared with Ebola's most infamous outbreak.

During the 2014 to 2016 West African epidemic, it took almost five months for the death toll to reach 1,000. In the DRC, the current outbreak has reached more than twice that number in roughly three months.

Researchers believe the virus may have been circulating undetected since February, meaning the official figures could still underestimate the true scale of transmission.

That matters because the DRC is not an isolated country. It sits at the centre of a highly connected region, sharing borders with nine countries. People move across those borders for trade, work, family and refuge. The more difficult it becomes to identify infections inside the DRC, the harder it becomes for neighbouring countries to prevent imported cases.

Uganda has already confirmed 20 cases, while cases have also been treated in Germany and France.

So far, international spread remains limited. But the experience of previous epidemics shows why early containment matters.

One of the most worrying aspects of this outbreak is that the virus belongs to the Bundibugyo species of Ebola , a particularly rare strain.

There have only been two previously known Bundibugyo outbreaks, and unlike the Zaire species responsible for earlier major epidemics, there is currently no approved vaccine specifically available for this strain.

That leaves healthcare workers operating with fewer tools at precisely the moment they need them most.

There is, however, a potential breakthrough on the horizon. Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has authorised human trials of a Bundibugyo vaccine being developed by Oxford University researchers. The vaccine uses technology similar to that behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

That scientific response is encouraging, but it also highlights an uncomfortable reality: Africa cannot afford to wait for an outbreak to become catastrophic before developing the tools needed to fight it.

The DRC has experienced 17 Ebola outbreaks since the virus was first identified there 50 years ago. Yet repeated exposure has not eliminated the structural problems that make outbreaks difficult to control.