DRC health officials say Ebola outbreak past peak despite death toll surpassing 4,000

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said Friday that the Ebola outbreak has eased in several areas, with no new cases reported in multiple health zones for weeks, even as the total death toll has surpassed 4,000.   Data released Friday showed that the outbreak has claimed 4,018 lives among 8,300 confirmed cases across seven provinces, with an overall case fatality rate of 48.4 percent. A total of 2,162 patients have recovered.   The virus, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, spread quickly across remote areas that were already grappling with insecurity and poor health facilities, making it difficult for health authorities to contain the disease. While, after weeks of scaling up operations, officials say cases are now declining.   "We are no longer talking about outbreaks at the provincial level, but outbreaks concentrated in individual health zones," Health Minister Roger Kamba told a press briefing in Kinshasa.   Of the 63 health zones affected across seven provinces since the outbreak began, 12 have reported no new cases for 42 days, Kamba said.   "With all the evidence we have presented, we can affirm that the peak of the epidemic is now behind us. The outbreak is no longer beyond our control. We are no longer chasing it. Before we were trailing it, but now we are staying ahead and anticipating its course," said Kamba.   Despite signs of localized improvement in the DRC's Ebola outbreak situation, international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned Thursday that the actual toll was likely higher than officially reported due to gaps in disease surveillance and case detection.   The World Health Organization (WHO) also said that the DRC's Ebola outbreak is not yet under control despite a decline in cases in Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak.   The Ebola outbreak declared in May has become the largest and deadliest ever recorded in the DRC and the second largest Ebola outbreak worldwide, after the 2014-2016 one in West Africa.

DRC health officials say Ebola outbreak past peak despite death toll surpassing 4,000

The Pentagon acknowledged late Friday, local time, that the number of U.S. troops who had died during its operations against Iran was higher than previously reported, raising the official death toll to 21.

The revised figure includes two additional noncombat deaths: an Army National Guard major who died in Kuwait in March and a Navy service member who died in September.

The Pentagon's publicly available database had previously listed a lower death toll. According to the latest data, 865 service members had been wounded in the related operations as of October 9.

Sources familiar with the matter say official statistics fail to fully capture U.S. military casualties from the war with Iran.

Since the start of the war, actual U.S. casualty numbers have exceeded those recorded in the Pentagon's official database, with the records omitting information on hundreds of U.S. service members who were killed or injured, they said.

US troop death toll in Iran war raised to 21