The number of deaths in Congo’s Ebola outbreak has surpassed 3,000, government data showed on Wednesday, as the country’s worst epidemic continues to spread across its northeast

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The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday said the Ebola response needs to be scaled up to tackle the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with tracking the chains of transmission still posing a challenge.

“Until every chain is found and broken, the epidemic will continue and will continue to pose a threat to DRC, its neighbours and the region as a whole,” the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told reporters in Geneva.

The number of deaths in Congo’s Ebola outbreak has surpassed 3,000, government data showed on Wednesday, as the country’s worst epidemic continues to spread across its northeast. 

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, became the largest and deadliest in Congo’s history after surpassing the 2018-2020 epidemic.

It is now second only to the 2014-2016 West African outbreak, which infected over 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000 across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 

But there is now hope of possible progress in treatments and vaccinations. The WHO aims to start clinical efficacy trials of potential vaccines next month or in November, and trials on treatments are under way.

FUNDING NEEDED FOR MORE BEDS

However, Tedros said many deaths were among people who were not on a list of known contacts.

“That means there are chains of transmission we don’t know about,” he said, adding that many of those who died were still being buried unsafely, which is fuelling transmission. 

He urged the international community to increase and accelerate funding for the Congolese government-led Ebola response plan, which is seeking $1.3 billion.

While the WHO has managed to ship 320 tons of supplies, and has increased testing capacity to 3,000 tests per day, it needs further funding to help support its response – including to increase bed capacity at Ebola treatment centres.

Luca Fontana, technical officer for health and technical logistics with the WHO, said it costs $15 million per month for a 1,500 bed treatment centre.

“We know that we are making this request at a time when financing for humanitarian assistance has contracted,” Tedros said. “But as we know from previous Ebola outbreaks, we can control this epidemic if we choose to.”

CLINICAL TRIALS

More than 300 Ebola patients have been enrolled for a trial of two treatments, Tedros said.

Trials are also under way of the antiviral drug obeldesivir among people considered high-risk contacts of Ebola cases, to assess if it is effective in preventing disease after exposure to the virus.

Two new vaccines against Bundibugyo virus are in safety trials in Britain and Canada. It is not known whether an approved vaccine against the Zaire Ebola virus would be effective against Bundibugyo virus, so it requires clinical efficacy trials, the WHO said.

“WHO is working with partners to progress all three vaccines to efficacy trials in DRC, starting in October or November,” Tedros said. 

Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Miranda Murray, Alexandra Hudson and Alison Williams

Germany blamed Moscow for the attack, characterising it as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and cause divisions in countries that have rallied around Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion

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European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Wednesday to increase pressure on Russia, including with new sanctions, after an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany that she said showed Moscow’s growing “recklessness”.

Airport workers last month found a drone laden with explosives and a detonator at the airport, an important civilian freight and NATO logistics hub in eastern Germany that is also a base for several giant Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo planes.

Germany blamed Moscow for the attack, characterising it as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and cause divisions in countries that have rallied around Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Russia denies involvement. It says it will respond to what its foreign ministry spokesperson called “anti-Russian action”, and summoned Germany’s top diplomat in Moscow.

“Europe and NATO will not just maintain our pressure on Russia; we will increase it, and we will not stop – not until Russia stops bombing and killing innocent children, men and women in Ukraine,” von der Leyen said in Brussels after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

“Europeans are faced with the hard truth that this is the new normal. We have to step up, and that means being ready to respond to Russia’s recklessness faster and better.”

The full scope of new sanctions was not immediately clear.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was working on sanctions related to Russia’s military complex, and France’s foreign minister called for action against Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of ships accused of circumventing energy sanctions.

Rutte said more drones and missiles had crossed into NATO airspace on Europe’s eastern flank, and there was an increase in malign activities including the Leipzig attack.

“If Russia thinks we will be divided by the threat, or if they think we will be deterred from supporting Ukraine, they are mistaken,” he said.

The EU and several EU member states summoned Russian embassy officials. Germany said it would close Russia’s consulate general in Bonn and terminate its agreement with the Russian House cultural centre in Berlin.

TWO SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED, MEDIA OUTLETS SAY

Details of two Leipzig attack suspects were reported by German media outlets Sueddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR.

Investigators have identified the logistics coordinator and instructor behind the attack, the outlets reported.

The man, Russian-born but holding a Latvian passport, was believed to have ties to Russian intelligence, they said. He is thought to have flown into Berlin in late July and driven a rental car towards Leipzig. Two days before the failed drone attack, the suspect left Germany by plane, they reported.

The second suspect was a man from Belarus who also holds a Russian passport and is thought to have entered the country on an Italian tourist visa obtained in Minsk, the outlets said.

Germany’s Public Prosecutor General did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia also did not immediately comment further on the case.

GERMANY PROBES SABOTAGE CASES

As the EU prepared its response, Germany was grappling with two new suspected sabotage cases within 24 hours.

In the first, authorities were investigating vandalism at a substation in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) that prompted lignite power plant units with 4,200 megawatts (MW) in combined capacity to go off the grid.

In the other, also on Tuesday, devices carrying conductive material damaged power lines at one of the most critical high-voltage nodes in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

NRW’s interior minister said the work of foreign powers or left-wing extremists could not be ruled out.

Brandenburg’s interior minister, Jan Redmann, said there appeared to be parallels between the attacks but that investigations were at an early stage.

The incidents come at a sensitive time as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which calls for closer ties to Moscow, is topping polls before a state election this weekend.

Lawmaker Alexander Throm, an interior policy expert from Germany’s ruling conservatives, said it was striking that such incidents were occurring before elections.

“The clear goal is to unsettle the public. Of course, that is a goal shared not only by Russia but also by others, such as left-wing extremists,” Throm told Reuters.

Additional reporting by Bart H. Meijer, Padraic Halpin, Conor Humphries, John Irish, Dominique Vidalon, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Lili Bayer, Christoph Steitz, Matthias Inverardi and Miranda Murray; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Timothy Heritage

The extensive damage to the G216 national highway had meant that China had been airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, some of whom trekked through the mountains to get to the site

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China has fully reopened the only road leading to the Gyirong border crossing into Nepal a week after sections were washed away by catastrophic flooding, allowing heavy machinery to reach the main disaster zone for the first time.

The extensive damage to the G216 national highway had meant that China had been airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, some of whom trekked through the mountains to get to the site.

Large numbers of heavy machines have now reached the area where a Chinese border inspection complex once stood, along with equipment to reinforce search operations, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.

Showing footage of rescue teams and excavators, CCTV said rescue crews equipped with life-detection devices and search dogs had been deployed.

Progress has been hampered by persistent rain and challenging terrain, as crews have to work in a narrow mountain gorge, hemmed in between unstable cliffs and a fast-flowing river.

Authorities, which have been monitoring upstream lakes that could cause more flooding if they burst, said those risks have diminished but landslides were still a concern.

In Nepal, authorities said hopes of finding more survivors were fading. At least 1,114 people have been killed there and nearly 4,000 remain unaccounted for.

OVER 30 LATVIAN TOURISTS BELIEVED MISSING 

Across the border in Tibet, China’s official death toll climbed to 21 on Wednesday, and 541 remained missing. Authorities previously said 104 Nepali citizens, 49 Indians, 33 Latvians and six Canadians were among the people missing. 

Karlis Eihenbaums, Latvia’s ambassador to China, said the country’s embassy was in permanent contact with the Chinese foreign ministry and authorities in Tibet for updates.

Embassy personnel have not sought to visit the Tibetan disaster site as information received from Nepal suggested the missing Latvians could have been swept away to the Nepali side, he said.

Canada said in a statement on Tuesday that its officials were in regular contact with representatives of China’s foreign ministry, who have confirmed that response efforts continue to locate missing Canadians in Gyirong County.

Much of the information about the disaster in Tibet has only been made available through specific sources, mainly China’s state-controlled media.

When asked on Tuesday why the Chinese government had not allowed foreign journalists to visit the disaster zone, the foreign ministry cited loss of access to roads and communication in the area as well as major safety risks from secondary disasters.

Reporting by Liz Lee, Ethan Wang, Joe Cash, Chu Mei Mei, Qiaoyi Li and Yukun Zhang in Beijing; Additional reporting by Sydney newsroom; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Edwina Gibbs

The 43-year-old Swiss man was arrested on Monday, a day after the shooting

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The suspect in a shooting that killed one person and injured six others at a rave party in Aarau, northern Switzerland, at the weekend handed himself in and admitted responsibility for the attack, Swiss police said on Wednesday.

The 43-year-old Swiss man was arrested on Monday, a day after the shooting.

In a press conference on Wednesday the commander of Aargau cantonal police said there was no indication anyone else had been involved.

“We can say with near certainty that the arrested man is the person who shot at the rave partygoers on Sunday,” Michael Leupold said.

“We therefore assume, with a high degree of certainty, that the shooting was the act of one individual — a lone perpetrator.”

Police had been seeking to trace the man and his vehicle when he went to a police station in Delemont, about 33 miles (53 km) away from Aarau in his home canton of Jura, and said he was responsible.

The man has not been named, in accordance with Swiss law.

Police found three weapons in his car: an AK-74 Kalashnikov assault rifle and two pistols. Investigators said the assault rifle and one of the pistols had been fired during the attack.

Police said the man drove to the venue, and fired more than 40 shots indiscriminately into the crowd of more than 100 people.

He then returned to the parking lot where he fired several shots from a pistol including at a vehicle that was driving away.

A 22-year-old Italian woman was killed in the shooting, while six other people were injured. Two remain in hospital, where their condition was said to be improving. 

Prosecutors said there were indications the suspect may have mental health issues. Police said there was no evidence of an ideological or extremist motive.

Reporting by John Revill; editing by Barbara Lewis