Ebola death toll in Congo, Uganda passes 500 as cases mount

A total of 523 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring Uganda have died from the deadly Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. The ongoing outbreak began in mid-May. Health officials confirmed more than 1,600 cases of the disease as of Tuesday, mostly located in the DRC. A healthcare worker who returned to France has also tested positive for Ebola.

Healthcare workers in the DRC were working to monitor over 10,000 people who were possibly exposed to the virus, the United Nations said Tuesday. They faced shortages of needed equipment, including ambulances, and treatment centers were running out of room, according to the UN. However, more testing labs recently opened in the area of the DRC’s hard-hit capital city Kinshasa, enabling about 2,000 daily tests rather than the previous capacity of 30. The UN also reported that a clinical trial of the first experimental treatment for the Bundibugyo strain began last week.

The news came as some frontline healthcare professionals and security teams in the DRC went on strike, claiming that they had not been paid since the outbreak began. Some also raised concerns about insufficient equipment, according to the Associated Press. The outlet did not report how many workers were striking.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on the first confirmed Ebola case in France during the outbreak.