BUNIA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s fast-moving Ebola outbreak has now killed over 2,300 people and become the deadliest outbreak of the disease on record in the Central African nation.
The outbreak unfolding in one of Congo’s most vulnerable regions is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever, with 4,945 cases including 2,325 deaths, according to government data released overnight into Monday.
This is Congo’s 17th and largest Ebola outbreak. The toll eclipses that of the country's 2018-2020 outbreak when 2,299 deaths out of 3,481 cases were recorded.
The latest data shows 101 new cases and 33 deaths reported in the previous 24 hours. Over 1,000 people have recovered, while 730 remain in hospitals or isolation.
The outbreak has infected and killed more people at a greater speed than any other outbreak in history. The World Health Organization has said it is on track to surpass the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the deadliest on record with more than 11,000 deaths.
There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current outbreak across six provinces in Congo's east. Trials for those are ongoing in Ituri province, the epicenter.
Most new cases and deaths are being reported outside of people being monitored. Challenges also include strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel groups, anger from long-traumatized communities, territories difficult to reach due to bad roads, and misinformation asserting that Ebola isn’t real.
WHO warned over the weekend that the outbreak is still moving at an “exceptional pace” ahead of efforts to track it, noting that it reached a weekly record of 579 cases and 304 deaths in the previous week.
“A substantial scaling up of response activities is underway to get ahead of the outbreak,” the agency said.
On Friday, United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher announced the allocation of an additional $30.5 million and the deployment of 20 more staff to aid the response on the frontlines.
“This is a wake-up call,” Fletcher said. “We need speed, scale and solidarity before this virus gets even further ahead of us.”
A health worker sprays disinfectant in a freshly dug grave for the body of Jacques Lobo Dhena, who died of Ebola, in Bunia, Ituri province, eastern Congo, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Dieudonne Dirole)
U.S. President Donald Trump has again threatened Oman as Iran says it is working with the Gulf Arab country on a plan to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Fully reopening the waterway has been a key U.S. demand.
Meanwhile, the 60-day negotiating period to find a peace deal between the United States and Iran was expiring, with no word of an extension and both sides seemingly as far apart as they were at the start.
Here’s a look at the latest developments Monday in the Iran war and the wider Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.
Iran said it has reached an agreement with Oman over a plan for ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between the two countries, and they are now working to finalize details for a joint statement.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran, Iran's capital, that “an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route.”
He did not elaborate, but details that have previously emerged suggest the deal would reopen the strait with ships entering through a route close to Iran and exiting through a route close to Oman. Ships would transit without paying fees or tolls during an interim period.
The U.S. has sought an acceptable deal on opening the strait before ending its blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran effectively closed the strait — through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war — after Israel and the U.S. attacked the country on Feb. 28.
Baghaei conceded the talks with Oman have gone slowly, “but we had planned, and still plan, to finalize the understanding in the form of a package: the map plus a joint statement.”
Trump told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst that the U.S. would bomb Oman if it “gets in the way,” using an expletive for emphasis.
Fox News did not provide audio of the interview.
This is not the first time that Trump has threatened Oman. In May, he told reporters during a Cabinet meeting that “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up.”
Trump also said the expiration of the 60-day deadline on talks to end the war was irrelevant and said there was no timeline, Yingst said. Trump said the U.S. has a back channel for talks with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Yingst added.
Mideast negotiator Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, met on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the day after he had a rare, two-hour meeting with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt on disarmament of the Palestinian militant group.
Netanyahu last week rejected a 15-point, U.S.-backed road map to move the ceasefire deal forward in Gaza.
Hamas says it has agreed to the road map, which includes disarmament, and the group is urging mediators and the U.S.-created Board of Peace to “compel” Israel to sign on.
But Israel, which under the road map must gradually withdraw from Gaza, says Hamas must fully disarm before any Israeli withdrawal.
Israeli troops occupy about 60% of the strip, and Netanyahu has previously threatened to advance further.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed that they attacked a ship and four military boats on Monday in the Red Sea off the Yemeni city of Mokha, near the strategic Bab el-Mandab Strait.
The rebels fired a number of ballistic missiles at the vessels, resulting in the capsizing and burning of the boats, Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, said in a statement.
The rebels claimed that the vessels belonged to Saudi Arabia, without providing evidence. There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia, and The Associated Press could not independently verify the Houthi claim.
Saree also said the rebels launched a drone attack on government forces in the central province of Marib.
Two officials in northern Iraq were targeted in drone attacks that the regional counterterrorism service said were launched from the border with Iran.
One was fired at the office of Masrour Barzani, prime minister of Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, and the other targeted the home of a top regional intelligence official, the counterterrorism service said.
There were no casualties. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Since the beginning of the U.S.-Iran war, Iran and Iranian-backed Iraqi militant groups have launched regular attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic facilities in Iraq and on bases of exiled Iranian Kurdish dissident groups, but Monday’s direct attack on regional government buildings was unusual.
Barzani on X called the attack “a dangerous escalation and a direct threat to the security and stability of the Kurdistan Region.”
U.S. forces currently stationed in the Kurdish region of Iraq have begun withdrawing ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline agreed upon between Washington and Baghdad to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
This story corrects the first name of the prime minister of Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region to Masrour Barzani, instead of Masoud Barzani.
FILE - Jared Kushner waits to walk into the ring after the lightweight championship bout at UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House, June 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Palestinians remove iron from the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the war with Hamas, repair and recycle it for construction, building tents or selling it, in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A woman mourns during the funeral of Hezbollah member Ali al-Haj Hassan, his wife and four children who were killed the previous day by an Israeli airstrike, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Palestinians remove iron from the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the war with Hamas, repair and recycle it for construction, building tents or selling it, in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
