The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), its highest level of global alert.
Ebola was first identified in 1976 and it's the country’s 17th outbreak. Its deadliest outbreak, from 2018 to 2020, claimed nearly 2,300 lives, and over the past 50 years, around 15,000 people have died from Ebola across Africa.