4,018 dead: Congo's Ebola outbreak is now the fastest-growing in history — and a treatment centre lies in ashes

Bunia, DR Congo: The Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak has killed 4,018 people — nearly half of the roughly 8,300 confirmed cases — the health ministry said on Thursday, making it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded. The outbreak, announced on May 15, is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no known treatment or vaccine.

The enormous challenge of halting the spread just became harder after soldiers burned down a key transit centre for patients in Kigonze, on the outskirts of Bunia, while searching for weapons earlier this week. The United Nations said the burning forced some 19,000 people in the camp to flee. 'Creating Ebola transit and treatment centres has been a struggle, requiring money and staff, all of which are in short supply,' said Julien Harneis, the UN's senior Ebola coordinator.

In Bunia, the capital of Ituri province and the heart of the outbreak, health workers gathered to demand months of unpaid wages — and were quickly dispersed by officials. The protesters included surveillance teams tasked with tracing the contacts of infected patients. They carried placards reading 'No money, no data!' and 'No payment for months.' Frontline workers have downed tools several times since the outbreak began, further hampering containment.

More than 50 health workers have themselves died after contracting the virus. An aid worker with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) was infected while working in Congo and flown to the Netherlands on a special medical flight late on Thursday, transferred to a high-level isolation unit at Leiden University Medical Centre.

'The human cost of this crisis is unprecedented in the DRC, with communities facing the largest Ebola disease outbreak ever recorded in the country,' MSF said. The World Health Organisation has raised the alarm about the virus's rapid spread into new health zones, stretching already limited resources thin.

With no vaccine and no cure for the Bundibugyo strain, containment depends on the very workers now striking for their wages — and on treatment centres that are literally going up in flames. Every week the response falters, the curve steepens.