Switzerland says patient is wife of Swiss diplomat and believed to have contracted virus while travelling in Uganda

Health officials across Africa are racing to determine how Nigeria’s first Ebola patient ⁠in more than a decade ⁠became infected, amid fears ​the outbreak could spread further after reaching a fourth African country.

The Swiss foreign ministry said on Friday the patient in Nigeria, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, had not travelled to the Democratic Republic of ⁠Congo, where the outbreak was first detected in mid-May before spreading to Uganda, Kenya and now Nigeria. The woman was believed to have contracted Ebola while travelling with her husband in Uganda, the ministry added.

Case in Africa’s most populous country was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda

Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.

The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

Health minister says 28 contacts identified after death of citizen who arrived from DRC on Saturday

Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, after a Kenyan man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) died after returning to the country.

In mid-May, the DRC declared its 17th Ebola outbreak, an extremely deadly disease that has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.

Congolese photographer Pamela Tulizo uses costume and vivid scenery to celebrate women’s strength and give a new perspective on slavery

Pamela Tulizo’s latest series of photographs started with a question. “I asked myself, why are women in my community in particular, and African women in general, so strong?” says Tulizo, an artist and photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Where does this strength come from?”

Growing up in Goma in eastern DRC, Tulizo was informed and inspired by the women she was surrounded by, including her mother, her sisters, her mother’s friends and her neighbours.

Women are placed at the centre of the series of 23 staged photographs

Marie-Celestin Karondwa was attacked on Sunday after promoting measures to prevent spread of disease, his party says

A senior member of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s ruling party was beaten to death on Sunday after appearing on a radio programme to raise awareness about the Ebola outbreak, a party representative has said.

Marie-Celestin Karondwa, the acting president of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party’s federal executive committee in Butembo, a new hotspot for the outbreak, was attacked after taking part in a ​radio show during which he ‌promoted prevention measures for the disease, ‌the UDPS federation in the city said in a statement, Reuters reported.

More than a year after a peace deal was signed, violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is forcing people south to Tanganyika, where camps are already home to hundreds of thousands living in dire conditions

A cry of panic erupts across the camp as several shelters are engulfed in flames. Women rush to pull their children and meagre possessions away from the blaze. The young men of the camp quickly tear down the neighbouring shelters to form a firebreak.

Fire destroys homes at the Muganwa camp outside the town of Kalemie, DRC, on 11 September

Religion and collective resilience are beacons of hope in an electricity-deprived DRC in this otherworldly documentary debut

In Nelson Makengo’s feature documentary debut, night stretches on to infinity. The film opens on a black screen – a void of darkness – while a recording of a fervent sermon sounds like rolling thunder. In Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an electricity shortage has long plagued the inhabitants, leaving them to cling on to religion as a beacon of hope. Their plight is worsened by climate disasters resulting in floods. Viewed through Makengo’s lens, nocturnal life acquires an otherworldly dimension, as basic human necessities become an elusive luxury.

Shot mostly in Makengo’s neighbourhood of Kisenso, the film observes the ways in which struggling city dwellers adapt to a life lived in the shadows. Meals are eaten by candlelight, while churchgoers wear light-up medallions to illuminate their prayer books. Such survival tactics speak to a collective resilience, while also rendering these previously mundane activities eerily dystopian. The matriarchs of the community lament the rise of crime and sexual assaults that occur in the absence of public lighting, while younger members of the neighbourhood raise funds to retrieve stolen electric cables. In the absence of state support, this community spirit is the only energy that perseveres in times of extreme precarity.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, figures compiled by conflict monitor underline how Sahel region has become centre of Islamist terror

Islamist extremist violence in Africa’s Sahel region is set to reach historic highs after a series of sweeping offensives by groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State, according to new figures compiled by the conflict monitor Acled.

As the US marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks launched by al-Qaida against targets in Washington and New York, the statistics underline the continued expansion of the veteran organisation in parts of Africa – in stark contrast with its relative weakness elsewhere.

Almost 3,500 people have died in outbreak and experts say more must be done to ensure Bundibugyo is under control

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have announced that the Ebola outbreak ravaging parts of the country has reached its peak.

For the first time since the epidemic was declared in May, the numbers of people becoming infected is slowing down, according to officials.

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.”

Ebola is a disease that spreads through communities, so we need to listen to communities if we want to halt its spread

Each time we travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we go first to listen. In Bunia, we have met dozens of community representatives: survivors, women, young people, local organisations, health workers and leaders from affected areas.

Their message was direct: involve us. We know our communities. We know where families seek care, how information moves and why trust is breaking down. Give us the means to help drive the response. They were right.

More than 2,000 people have died from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the first case of this epidemic was recorded in May. The Guardian's global health correspondent, Kat Lay, spoke to CDC Africa's Yap Boum II to understand why health teams on the ground are struggling and what is being put in place to try to contain the spread

• Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo now deadliest in country’s history

People fighting to contain rapidly growing outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo describe the obstacles and dangers they face

Every day, Sophie Mwadawa Kabundo goes to her job as a nurse at an Ebola treatment centre in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, afraid she will contract the virus and pass it to her family and friends.

“More and more confirmed cases are being admitted here … Some of our colleagues have died,” said Kabundo. “We fear that, despite our vigilance, workplace accidents may occur and put us in ever greater danger … We go to sleep already worrying about the days ahead, as patients continue to pour in.”

On 23 August, it will be 100 days since the Bundibugyo strain was first reported. How did it became the DRC’s most deadly outbreak and what must be done to stop it becoming the world’s largest?

Almost 100 days ago, Africa’s public health watchdog reported an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

There have now been almost 5,000 cases and more than 2,000 deaths since 15 May, making this Ebola outbreak the biggest and most deadly in the DRC’s history.

The Trump administration’s ‘America first’ approach has contributed to the scale of the crisis now unfolding in one of the world’s poorest countries

For months health experts have warned that the scale of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could surpass the one that swept west Africa in 2014-16. This week, the authorities in the DRC announced that a grim milestone has already been passed: at least 2,325 people have died from the virus, making it the deadliest of the country’s 17 outbreaks and the fastest-growing in history.

There is no effective vaccine against Bundibugyo – a rare strain of the virus that spread fatally undetected during the spring, often being misdiagnosed as malaria or typhoid. In contrast to neighbouring Uganda, which succeeded in eliminating an outbreak, multiple factors are combining to let the disease rip through the DRC. The worst-affected region is contested by armed groups, and a context of population displacement and chronic insecurity has made monitoring and surveillance more difficult. Ebola treatment centres have been attacked as a result of misinformation and community distrust.

New species and regional instability are factors – but decisions made in the US and Britain are also costing lives

Did you know that there is a major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it’s on track to be the deadliest ever? It is already the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history, with the fastest community transmission we have ever seen. It’s estimated that there have been at least 4,900 cases and more than 2,300 deaths, giving a mortality rate close to 50%. The situation is bad. That’s the consensus among global health experts.

Yet this Ebola outbreak isn’t attracting much media or public attention. If I compare it with working on the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the current silence is astounding. That year, Ebola was one of the most Googled terms in the world, covered regularly on broadcast news in many countries outside the region, attracting newspaper headlines and magazine covers. Perhaps everyone is just tired of disease after the pandemic – Covid-19 fatigue, as it’s called. Trust me, no one wants to hear about infectious diseases.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

At least 2,325 people have died from the virus, according to official data, with outbreak on track to be biggest in history

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now the deadliest in the country’s history with at least 2,325 people dead, according to government data, surpassing the toll from the 2018-20 outbreak.

The DRC’s public health institute said confirmed cases had risen to 4,945, including 101 detected in the previous 24 hours.

Man dies in Bas-Uele after travelling from Haut-Uele, as head of WHO says outbreak on track to be deadliest ever

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a sixth province, officials have said, a day after the head of the World Health Organization said the outbreak was on track to surpass the deadliest in history, which killed at least 11,000 people more than a decade ago.

The current outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures released on Tuesday. At the same point in the 2014-16 outbreak in west Africa, the previous most deadly outbreak, 755 cases had been recorded, according to WHO data.

Cases have passed 4,000 and health watchdog plans to go door to door to find patients in major response escalation

The virus causing a massive outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could be mutating, health officials fear, as confirmed cases pass 4,000.

Africa’s public health watchdog said the time for incremental action was over as they announced plans to scale up every aspect of the response and go “door to door” looking for patients.

As the death toll rises to almost 1,500, and with a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain potentially still months away, health workers face a battle to slow the outbreak

The latest numbers of confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has made this latest outbreak the fastest growing in the known history of the virus.

At 3,360 confirmed cases, the disease is now affecting people in five provinces in the east of the DRC, with 1,487 deaths recorded, representing an overall case fatality rate estimated at about 45%, according to Congolese health officials. Health responses to the outbreak have been badly hampered by conflict in many of the affected areas.