The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reached 506 deaths. CIDRAP has the news.

The DRC Ministry of Health has confirmed 1,561 cases in the outbreak. 33 of the DRC cases are new. Neighboring Uganda has 20 cases and two deaths reported.

Healthcare workers in Ituri, the province in the DRC hit hardest by the outbreak, issued a “24-hour notice of an impending strike” on Sunday, saying “working conditions were too poor to continue. They reported unpaid benefits, low wages, and inadequate supplies since the outbreak officially began in May.”

A strike would “hinder the execution of two experimental therapies that were launched this past week in the DRC. Enrollees will be given the antiviral drug remdesivir, the experimental antibody treatment MBP134, or a combination of both, with survival rates calculated during a 28-day follow-up period.”

The WHO has also added the first diagnostic test for the Ebola Bundibugyo virus to its emergency use listing. Experts suspect “tests given in the DRC throughout the spring may have missed early infections caused by the Bundibugyo strain, instead only assessing for the more common Zaire strain of the Ebola virus.” Contract tracing remains difficult in the region, and a “patient zero has still not been identified in this outbreak.”