As more patients recover from the world’s largest recorded Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak, doctors are beginning to piece together how the rare virus behaves, offering the clearest picture yet of one of the disease’s least-studied strains.
The number of recoveries reported by Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) health authorities almost doubled in a week, rising to 148 on Thursday from 80 on June 18, even as treatment centres admit dozens of patients daily.
The DRC said late on Sunday that confirmed Ebola cases in the country had reached 1,274, including 360 deaths.
Previous Bundibugyo outbreaks had lower reported fatality rates than epidemics caused by the more common Zaire and Sudan species, but doctors say it is too early to know whether the current epidemic will follow the same pattern because hundreds of patients remain hospitalised.
The uncertainty reflects how little scientists still know about the virus.
Before this year, Bundibugyo had caused just two recognised outbreaks since it was identified in Uganda in 2007, with only 193 confirmed cases combined.
