CDC report: Ebola outbreak could rival the worst on record unless world acts

Health workers don protective equipment at an Ebola treatment center on June 2, 2026 in Monigi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Daniel Buuma/Getty Images hide caption

Ebola outbreak that's raging in Africa could rival the outbreak that hit West Africa a decade ago, resulting in 20,000 cases and at least 4,000 deaths within the next three months alone.

These projections appear in new analyses from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which modeled just how bad the current outbreak could get.

Both Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are racing to contain this big outbreak of Ebola that prompted the World Health Organization to declare an international health emergency.

But according to three new papers published Friday afternoon from CDC, large-scale and sustained public health interventions need to be put in place rapidly to reduce spread of the disease to avoid a worse-case scenario.

"If only 20% of cases enter isolation within two days of symptom onset, more than 20,000 cases are projected in two out of three of our scenarios," said Jason Asher from the CDC's Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics at a late-afternoon press briefing where the analyses were released.

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Those 20,000 cases would occur in just the next three months, according to projections. If the outbreak continues beyond that, the numbers could climb much higher, which would make this the worst Ebola outbreak on record.