While several coffin makers in Bunia said they were providing a public service, the virus has put them at the center of a debate around safe burials.

© Arlette Bashizi for The New York Times

The two new zones affected are Biena and Manguredjipa in Congo's North Kivu province, where the case fatality rate is much higher than the overall rate of 48%, due in part to delayed response efforts, according to Congo's Ministry of Health data.

Prof Pierre Akilimali, who heads DR Congo’s response to an outbreak that has so far killed more than 2,700 people, says tackling the disease requires trust and respect

The statistics, says the man responsible for overseeing the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are meaningless. That it is now the largest outbreak, the most deadly strain, that 100 days have passed, that the death rates keep climbing, says Prof Pierre Akilimali, should never detract from the human tragedies at the centre of this virus.

“It is behind those numbers that matters; it is the father, the child, the loved relative. Behind every case is a person and behind every person is a family. For us Congolese, we hold on to that as we work.”

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© Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters

© Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters

© Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters

The vaccination campaign was officially launched in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo province, in the country's east, Health Minister Roger Kamba said.

Experts fear the waterway – a lifeline for passengers, timber, produce and goods – could become a conduit for the virus

The public health emergencies in 2022 and 2024 saw the virus reported in 145 countries, but in the new cases children appear particularly affected

A fresh outbreak of mpox in Guinea Bissau – the country’s first – means the virus formerly known as monkey pox is back in the headlines. So what has changed?

Since 2022, there have been almost 190,000 lab-confirmed cases of mpox reported worldwide in 145 countries. Before then, outbreaks of mpox tended to be relatively small and in a handful of African countries, where the viral infection was known to be endemic.

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© Photograph: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images

The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola could become the biggest in history

The debate highlights the difficulties involved in designing and running trials during a medical emergency

Congo’s current epidemic is on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016

More than 200 people headed for DRC’s capital Kinshasa are detained following the death of a passenger who had already disembarked

New cases have doubled in some hotspots over the past week, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns

At least a dozen facilities have now been attacked since Congo declared its outbreak

Dozens of fatalities are being recorded each day in what could become the worst ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever

An estimated 63,000 pregnant women are due to give birth in a country that already has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates