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The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at least 2,011 people out of 4,381 confirmed cases across five provinces, Congolese health officials reported on August 11, making it the fastest-growing and now the second-deadliest Ebola epidemic in history. Approximately 1,000 of those deaths occurred in the last three weeks alone, a rate of acceleration that the World Health Organization has described as unprecedented for an Ebola event. The pathogen driving the outbreak is the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, a less-studied species for which no approved vaccine or targeted treatment exists, complicating a response that is already hampered by armed conflict, population displacement, and gaps in surveillance across eastern Congo’s most unstable provinces. Key Takeaways As of August 11, the DRC has recorded 4,381 confirmed Ebola cases and 2,011 deaths, with a case fatality rate of 45.9%; the outbreak has spread across 53 health zones in five provinces. During the most recent complete reporting week, 567 new cases and 296 deaths were recorded, the highest weekly figures since the outbreak began. The outbreak was officially declared on May 15, 2026, in Ituri Province, but the WHO has said infections likely began in January or February in the town of

Brazil awarded its first-ever public land concession for Amazon reforestation in March 2026, granting startup Re.green the rights to restore and protect 59,000 hectares of degraded land in the Bom Futuro National Forest over a 40-year contract. The concession — backed by carbon credit financing, Indigenous community participation, and a government framework designed to scale to 300,000 hectares by 2027 — represents a structural shift in how Brazil approaches forest recovery, moving from enforcement-only anti-deforestation policy toward active restoration financed by international capital and private sector investment. What Does Brazil’s Reforestation Concession Model Look Like? The Bom Futuro concession operates on a premise that had not been tested at scale in the Amazon before 2026: that degraded public forest land can be leased to private companies for restoration, with carbon credits generated by replanted trees sold on international markets to cover costs and produce returns. Re.green emerged as the sole bidder in the government-led auction for the first plot, securing the right to plant more than 80 native tree species across 59,000 hectares while paying the Brazilian government a commission of 0.7 percent of revenues — estimated at approximately $2 million annually. The Karitiana Indigenous community, which lives within the

The World Health Organization declared on July 14 that 80% of new Ebola cases in eastern Congo are emerging from unknown chains of transmission, a sign that the outbreak is spreading faster than health workers can contain it. With nearly 2,000 confirmed infections and more than 700 deaths in two months, the Bundibugyo virus outbreak is now the third-largest Ebola epidemic on record and the fastest-growing ever documented on the African continent. An Outbreak That Has Outrun Its Response WHO Executive Director of Health Emergencies Chikwe Ihekweazu delivered the assessment from Geneva after returning from Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province in eastern Congo and the geographic center of the outbreak. Ihekweazu told reporters that single-day case counts have exceeded 80 confirmed infections, a rate of daily growth unprecedented across any of the 17 Ebola outbreaks Congo has experienced. As of July 13, the Congolese Ministry of Health reported 1,963 confirmed cases and 719 deaths across five provinces. The 80% figure — the share of new cases that cannot be traced to any known contact — represents the outbreak’s most dangerous characteristic. In a functioning Ebola containment operation, health workers trace the contacts of every confirmed patient, monitor those individuals

England has become the first European country to approve teplizumab, an immunotherapy that delays the onset of type 1 diabetes, through a formal health technology appraisal. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended the drug for NHS use in final draft guidance issued June 23, 2026, offering people in the early stage of the condition an average of nearly three years before they develop symptoms and need insulin. Key Takeaways The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended teplizumab for NHS use in final draft guidance on June 23, 2026. England is the first European country to back the immunotherapy through a health technology appraisal. Teplizumab delays the onset of symptomatic type 1 diabetes by an average of nearly three years. The treatment is for children aged eight and older and adults in the pre-symptomatic stage 2 of the disease. Around 1,100 people could be eligible in the first year across England and Wales. What Teplizumab Does Teplizumab, sold as Tzield and made by Sanofi, is the first immunotherapy that targets the underlying cause of type 1 diabetes rather than managing its consequences. Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks the insulin-producing beta cells in

Most efforts to fight plastic pollution try to use less of it. An 18-year-old student from Ireland has taken a different route, designing a plastic built to help clean up the mess plastics already make. Arya Satheesh, of Letterkenny in County Donegal, was named the European regional winner of The Earth Prize 2026 for Eco Purge, a plant-based biodegradable plastic engineered to break down safely while releasing enzymes that attack microplastics in the surrounding environment. The award places her among seven regional winners chosen from roughly 4,000 entrants in what organizers call the world’s largest environmental competition for teenagers. A Plastic Designed To Clean Up After Itself The idea behind Eco Purge is to make a single material do two jobs at once. Conventional plastics linger for decades and fragment into microplastics, the tiny particles now found in oceans, soil, food and drinking water. Satheesh’s material is built to biodegrade rather than fragment, and as it breaks down it releases catalysts that help degrade other microplastic particles nearby. The mechanism rests on enzymes embedded inside the plant-based plastic as it is formed. While the product is in use, the enzymes stay stable and inert. As the material degrades, they are

A fast-moving Ebola outbreak in Central Africa has pushed the World Health Organization into one of its most demanding containment efforts in years, complicated by a viral strain that no licensed vaccine or treatment is designed to stop and by an active war zone that keeps responders from reaching the sick. The WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 16 May 2026, the highest alarm in global health. It is the 17th Ebola outbreak recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, arriving only five months after the previous one ended. What sets this episode apart is the pathogen behind it. A Rare Strain With No Licensed Vaccine The outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, a rarer species than the Zaire ebolavirus that existing Ebola treatments and vaccines were built to fight. That distinction is the central problem facing responders. The licensed tools stockpiled from past epidemics, including Merck’s Ervebo vaccine, target the Zaire strain, and there is no approved therapy or vaccine specific to Bundibugyo. The virus carries an estimated fatality rate of between 25% and 50%. Scientists are weighing whether Ervebo might offer partial cross-protection, though animal data are mixed and questions

A bispecific antibody developed in China has done something no drug had managed before: beaten the established immunotherapy standard for a common form of lung cancer in a head-to-head trial. Akeso announced on May 31 that ivonescimab, paired with chemotherapy, produced a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival as a first-line treatment for advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer in the Phase III HARMONi-6 study. The result, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago and published simultaneously in The Lancet, lands as both a clinical milestone and a marker of how far Chinese biotech has come. What The Trial Showed The headline figure is a sharp one. In the intent-to-treat population, ivonescimab plus chemotherapy reduced the risk of death by 34% versus tislelizumab plus chemotherapy, with a hazard ratio of 0.66 and a p-value of 0.0017. Patients on ivonescimab lived a median of about 28 months after enrollment, compared with 24 months for the control group. The study enrolled 532 patients, roughly 63% of whom had centrally located squamous tumors, a notably difficult-to-treat group. That four-month survival gain carries weight in a disease where progress has been incremental. Oncologists described the extension