Updated

The Democratic Republic of Congo's outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, first detected in mid-May, has surpassed 7,000 cases, making it the country's worst Ebola epidemic on record, with nearly 3,400 deaths recorded so far. Health authorities continue efforts to contain the spread despite the scale of the crisis. The outbreak has now reached a seventh DR Congo province after an infected man traveled through Rwanda and Uganda, raising fears of further cross-border transmission. Congolese officials have insisted that case numbers are declining even as the geographic spread widens, a claim that has drawn scrutiny from health experts monitoring the epidemic's trajectory.