Africa

Case fatality rate climbs to nearly 48 percent in the DRC, meaning almost one in two people infected with Ebola are dying.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reached  5,515 confirmed cases of infection and killed 2,642 people, with 51 new cases detected in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, according to the latest government figures.

The update on Sunday came as Pope Leo called for ⁠international action to help contain the epidemic, which is now the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the DRC’s history.

Declared in mid-May, it is the DRC’s 17th Ebola epidemic and was designated a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), its highest alert level, also covering neighbouring Uganda.

The outbreak is now on track to surpass the deadliest Ebola epidemic on record, which was the 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people.

According to government figures, the case fatality rate in the DRC has climbed from about 20 percent in early June to nearly 48 percent now, meaning almost one in two people infected are dying.

Contact tracing, however, has improved sharply, from 30 percent in June to more than 85 percent.

The disease has also proved deadly for those fighting it. About 160 health workers have been infected, and about 45 have died, according to the WHO.

Efforts to contain the outbreak, however, have been hampered by armed conflict in the affected provinces, displacement, attacks on medical personnel and facilities, a mobile working population and a lack of critical infrastructure.

Vaccines arrive in DRC

There is no approved vaccine or treatment for this particular strain of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo, which is rarer than the virus type behind most past outbreaks.

The WHO has pledged 70,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine, which is licensed for Ebola and has been effective in past outbreaks. According to the global body, early data from animal trials suggest it may offer some protection against Bundibugyo.

Some 16,250 doses of the vaccine arrived in the DRC on Friday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other officials said the response in the DRC needs to be scaled up two to threefold to contain the outbreak and reach every affected area.

They also called for more support and protection for front-line health workers, including protective equipment, timely payment, and access to rapid diagnosis and high-quality supportive care if they fall ill.

Abdulsalami Nasidi, a public health consultant who helped establish the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told Al Jazeera that the outbreak was “getting out of hand”.

He blamed weak infection control measures and a lack of trust between authorities and affected communities for the continued transmission.

“This is no longer just a national or regional issue; it is a global issue. If it spreads to neighbouring places with lower immunity, it will be a disaster,” Nasidi added.

The WHO currently rates the risk to the global public as low, but warns that the danger inside the DRC remains very high.

Despite the surging cases, Uganda and several health zones in DRC’s Ituri and South Kivu have interrupted transmission, which the WHO said is evidence that rapid detection, decisive leadership, and community cooperation can break the chain of transmission.

At the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Leo offered prayers for the DRC, “in light of the spread of the Ebola epidemic, which is sadly ⁠claiming many lives”.

The pontiff also called for global action to help save lives.

“I urge the international community to ⁠respond in a way that also involves local communities ⁠in prevention efforts to save ⁠as many lives as possible,” he said.

Naivasha, Kenya – For communities living around Naivasha, water is not an abstract resource. It sustains families, livestock, farms and schools.

That reality has taken on new significance after plans for a major Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria, near Lake Naivasha, stalled in May 2026 over concerns about available power capacity.

Microsoft and United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence company G42 announced the project in 2024 as part of a $1bn digital investment package for Kenya. The proposed facility was to run on geothermal energy and eventually scale to as much as 1 gigawatt of capacity.

The uncertainty has also prompted questions about what another major industrial user could mean for water in a region where residents already report shortages.

Microsoft and G42 said the proposed data centre campus would run entirely on renewable geothermal energy and incorporate water conservation technology. The companies did not disclose a project-specific water consumption figure in their 2024 announcement.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) communications director Frank David Ochieng told Al Jazeera that the data centre remains at the design stage and that he could not comment further until the project is ready to proceed.

For residents like Musa Olorkedienye, who spoke to Al Jazeera, water scarcity is already a daily concern. He says communities around Olkaria have seen changes in access to water, including the loss of reliable piped supplies that residents previously received from KenGen.

“Currently, we are relying on water vendors to get water, our animals are walking for kilometres, and we fear things could get worse as demand for water rises,” Olorkedienye says.

Pastoralist Isaac Leshishi, who also spoke to Al Jazeera, says increasingly harsh weather is adding to the pressure.

Why Olkaria?

The choice of Olkaria was closely tied to energy. The area is home to Kenya’s major geothermal operations, making it an attractive location for a power-intensive facility.

KenGen operates the Olkaria geothermal complex, while Microsoft and G42 planned to power the proposed data centre entirely with geothermal energy.

A lake under pressure

Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya’s Rift Valley whose catchment supports agriculture, tourism, livestock and domestic water use. Its basin also hosts geothermal development and other economic activity.

Grace Kimani, a patrol leader with Lake Naivasha and Oloiden, told Al Jazeera that the reservoir is under growing pressure from population growth, agriculture, water abstraction, climate variability, pollution and ecosystem degradation.

“The planned Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria could bring jobs and investment, but its water demand raises concerns about adding pressure to already competing needs, particularly during dry periods,” she said.

Kimani said there is limited public information about the project’s expected water demand, source and cooling technology. She said transparency and an assessment of its cumulative impact on water resources would be important.

She also called for water-efficient or water-free cooling, water recycling and the use of treated wastewater, as well as sustainable abstraction limits and community involvement in monitoring.

Silas Wanjala of the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said the region is heavily dependent on groundwater and that declining water flows are adding to the pressure.

“These industries, especially EcoCloud, which deal with data, will consume a lot of water at a time when rivers are drying, and demand for water is on the rise,” Wanjala said.

Olkaria EcoCloud Data Centre is a local partner in the G42-led development. In 2024, the Kenya News Agency reported that G42, Microsoft and EcoCloud signed a letter of intent for the wider data-centre initiative, with EcoCloud described as a local partner that had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with G42.

Wanjala points to past fluctuations in Lake Naivasha as a warning.

“This lake in 2010 nearly dried up due to over-abstraction, and this could be repeated due to high demand for water by these investors in Olkaria,” he says.

His concern comes against a wider backdrop of water scarcity in Kenya. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations says Kenya has about 527 cubic metres (527,000 litres) of freshwater available per person, below the 1,000-cubic-metre threshold for water scarcity, and estimates availability could fall to about 475 cubic metres per person by 2030.

The figures do not show what effect the proposed data centre would have on Lake Naivasha. They provide context, however, for why the prospect of another major water user is drawing scrutiny in a region where demand is already high.

How much water would it use?

The amount of water the proposed Microsoft-G42 facility itself would require remains unclear.

The project announcement provides no projected consumption figure.

Existing industrial use offers some context.

A KenGen environmental and social impact assessment records that 195,165 cubic metres of water were abstracted from Lake Naivasha in July 2023 for domestic and commercial uses at Olkaria and for operations and domestic use at Eburru.

Of that total, 153,918 cubic metres were used for commercial operations at Olkaria. The assessment records the abstraction as within Water Resources Authority (WRA) permitted levels.

Those figures relate to existing KenGen operations, not the proposed data centre.

For farmer Eskimos Kobia, who spoke to Al Jazeera, the potential competition extends beyond households and livestock. He says farmers, pastoralists, schools and investors will all face greater pressure as demand increases.

Kimani said climate variability has also led to fluctuations in lake levels, with periods of flooding followed by prolonged dry conditions.

“Water quality is affected by agricultural run-off, untreated wastewater in some areas and invasive species,” she says.

Investment versus local concerns

Not everyone in Naivasha opposes the investment.

Absolom Mukhuusi of the Naivasha Professional Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, says the technology sector could bring jobs, infrastructure and new businesses to the area. But he says economic benefits should not come at the expense of local communities.

“Even as we welcome the investors, our biggest fear is what happens to our water bodies and communities as water is diverted to Olkaria for the heavy users,” he says.

Could technology help?

Geologist Kenyatta Otieno, who spoke to Al Jazeera, sees another potential benefit.

He recalls the pressure large flower farms once placed on the lake’s ecosystem, saying many have since left or scaled back their operations.

Otieno says the proposed centre would have included a resource centre to monitor lake levels and weather patterns. Such monitoring, he says, could help identify the highest water level over time and guide riparian land zoning.

“The centre being built with water conservation in mind would be futuristic as Naivasha is generally a water-scarce area. It would be a model for future development,” Otieno said.

Kenya already has regulators responsible for managing competing demands. The WRA regulates water abstraction and issues water-use permits, while the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) oversees environmental impact assessments under the country’s environmental regulatory framework.

Attempts by Al Jazeera to obtain comments from WRA and NEMA officials were unsuccessful. Efforts to reach Microsoft-G42 officials and Kenyan government officials for comment on the project’s status and water requirements were also unsuccessful.

For now, the project’s eventual scale, design and water requirements remain unclear, according to KenGen.

“We are now competing with the multibillion [-dollar] companies for water, and we fear that we shall be the losers in the long run,” Leshishi said.