At least 118 dead in Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, official says

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dancingbananas25@reddit

MF it's only monday, and we've got ebola and multiple mass shootings

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PleasantDreamsicle@reddit

Nowadays, you can just say “it’s Monday” …

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dittybopper_05H@reddit

They can see no reasons

'Cause there are no reasons

What reasons do you need, oh oh oh oh?

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SunnySpot69@reddit

Oh God is missed the mass shootings somehow

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Only three killed plus the shooters. You can't expect an American shooting to get attention if it doesn't at least get to double digit numbers. Otherwise, the news wouldn't have time for anything else.

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SunnySpot69@reddit

I looked it up afterwards. Apparently it was an attack on a mosque. Two teenagers in CA who killed themselves afterwards.

That's why it isn't reported.

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hera-fawcett@reddit

tbf two shooters is rare, as is the age of the shooters (16 and 18).

but it was a small ass amt of deaths so its handwaved for the next flood of info

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grownask@reddit

There were at least three: one in the US, one in Egypt and one in Türkiye.

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dancingbananas25@reddit

The one in the US was also in my own city

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GoreonmyGears@reddit

It was 80 this morning when I saw. 38... Today.

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handofmenoth@reddit

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dittybopper_05H@reddit

Actually, that's not all that much for Ebola deaths either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks#Major_or_massive_cases

Record appears to be 11,310 cases 2013-2016 outbreak in Guinea/Sierra Leone/Liberia, with very minor numbers spread to other nations.

Because Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids, it's relatively easy to contain an outbreak in modern societies where effective isolation protocols can be used on individual patients.

The biggest way that Ebola is spread in West Africa is when a person gets sick, and relatives tend to those who have contracted it without wearing PPE, and those who also prepare the corpse for burial.

This isn't a disease I worry about spreading much outside of Africa, simply because modern medicine is effective against its spread.

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Southern_Air3501@reddit

Except this one us a bit different:

"The type of Ebola virus behind the latest outbreak, known as Bundibugyo, is rare. Fewer field tests for it are available, and this form of the virus has no targeted vaccine or treatment, making it harder to contain."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/world/africa/what-to-know-ebola-africa.html

Not that I'm saying to worry. Just that nothing is "normal" anymore, sadly.

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dittybopper_05H@reddit

Umm, what is "normal"?

I've been here for almost 60 circuits around the Sun, and mostly all I've seen is change. Some for the better, some for the worst, but the word "normal" has to be very time and location specific, even when dealing with personal matters.

Besides which, the normal isolation and PPE regimes protect against this variant just like all the others.

Also, the New York Times never was the reliable source they'd like you to think. It was even mocked as the source of incorrect information in the classic Stanley Kubrick film "Dr. Strangelove":

President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?

Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.

President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.

https://i.redd.it/chrngtegn32h1.gif

So, yeah, that's them being mocked in a film from 1964. Clearly, all the news that's printed to fit.

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Roboticpoultry@reddit

gif

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No_Possible_7108@reddit

We went from 80 deaths in the 16th of this month to 118 three days later?

That's not good

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litreofstarlight@reddit

Why not the Black Death while we're about it. It wouldn't even surprise me at this point.

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SunnySpot69@reddit

I'm waiting on polio to make a come back for sure.

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Parking_Chance_1905@reddit

Technically its still around and infects a few people yearly.

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kheret@reddit

Yeah fortunately with that one we can treat it with antibiotics, at least for as long as those work.

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After_Competition_87@reddit

Bola is treatable too, 3rd world countries aren't so great at it tho

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ProofAssumption1092@reddit

The Congolese people never seem to get a break. If its not war or famine its disease

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VoidOmatic@reddit

Yup, it's been that way since I was a kid in the 80s.

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georgekn3mp@reddit

The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse

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existing_for_fun@reddit

Famine and Disease are both part of the 4th horse.

War is the second horse.

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Cultural-Company282@reddit

The Bible really missed the boat by failing to predict the sentient AI horse.

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existing_for_fun@reddit

Idk, might be Revelation 13:15

"And it was allowed to give breath (life) to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain."

Wonder if it is about AGI or something.

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Big_Fortune_4574@reddit

This seems obviously more infections than other Ebola strains. They keep reiterating that it’s not airborn but something is clearly different here. Ebola doesn’t spread this fast

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FriendlyArachnid6000@reddit

Yes yes we get it, you can't wake to have an excuse to sit on your ass at home again

They don't wash their hands. It's just normal ebola

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Big_Fortune_4574@reddit

I’m already sitting on my ass at home

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Downtown_Statement87@reddit

By the time the "first" patient, a healthcare worker, showed up, they were already about two months in to the outbreak. This has been spreading without people knowing for a while now.

I'm not now and never have been worried about the hanta virus, but I am worried about this Ebola outbreak because it's got such a long head start on containment and contact tracing, and because it's a rare strain without a vaccine or treatment protocol. It's going to be harder than usual to stop, and the usual is already pretty hard.

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Big_Fortune_4574@reddit

It’s not just that it had a head start, something is screwy and I’m not the only one or nearly the most qualified one freaked out about it https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/world/africa/ebola-outbreak-deaths-congo-who.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20260519&instance_id=175812&nl=breaking-news&regi_id=199049253&segment_id=220063

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Hortjoob@reddit

"CBS News also quoted sources as saying that at least six Americans have been exposed to the Ebola virus during the outbreak in the DR Congo.

The CDC said it was supporting the "safe withdrawal of a small number of Americans who are directly affected", but did not confirm how many."

Allegedly they may be quarantined at a US military base in Germany but CDC did not confirm.

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Dingleberry696@reddit

EUCOM has some experience/knowledge about Ebola. When I was stationed in Rota Spain we were flying Ebola suppose missions for about a year during the last outbreak. It's such a pain to deal with. We were disinfecting the insides of C-17s after missions.

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It-s_Not_Important@reddit

That’s a lot of surface area to disinfect

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DaveWoodstock@reddit

I sure feel safe with Kennedy in charge after trump did away with the ebola response unit.

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Weep4Thee@reddit

I remember this season of jack Ryan.

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floppypeter@reddit

Ebola obviously is terrible but to add some context here the death count is super super low vs the last major outbreak in 2016.

There were 29k cases and over 11k deaths in that outbreak.

1 death in the US and four cases overall.

Moreover, we have an effective vaccine now too and hundreds of thousands of doses have gone out since it launched in 2016.

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thrombolytic@reddit

That outbreak lasted 3 years. Once it was identified as an outbreak, it took 2 months to get to 281 cases and 186 deaths. We are only a few weeks in on this one and almost at those numbers. We do not have a rapid diagnostic for this strain so the numbers today are likely an under count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_African_Ebola_epidemic

There is no vaccine for the currently circulating strain of virus.

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syynapt1k@reddit

There is no approved vaccine for this strain - and many of the resources that were utilized to control previous outbreaks are now gone due to USAID being gutted.

Yes, it's "only" 118 deaths right now, but it's not over.

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