According to the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Communication and Media, the outbreak reached 3075 confirmed infections, with a case fatality rate of 44 per cent.
Congo health authorities said 755 patients remain hospitalised or in isolation, while 556 people have recovered. Contact tracing has reached 76.4 per cent of identified contacts, the government said.
The outbreak has spread across five provinces including Ituri, the epicentre, along with North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele and Tshopo.
The ministry said improved surveillance, expanded contact tracing and increased laboratory capacity have strengthened the detection and confirmation of infections in affected areas.
However, Congo's National Institute of Public Health warned the epidemic remains in "a phase of sustained transmission, with a high level of virus circulation."
Abdulsalami Nasidi, a public health consultant who helped establish the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Union's public health agency, told Al Jazeera the lack of a proven vaccine meant the virus was "spreading like a wildfire."
Nasidi said the epidemic was unfolding in an area of active hostilities, compounding the shortage of public health resources common to African governments confronting outbreaks.
The World Health Organization has said the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times larger than official data suggest.
Scientists are racing to find a way to slow the epidemic, and the University of Oxford's Oxford Vaccine Group said a volunteer had received the first dose of a rapidly developed experimental vaccine on Friday.
The Ebola outbreak, Congo's 17th, was declared in mid-May but experts believe infections started circulating weeks earlier.
It is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, which has a fatality rate of about 40 per cent. There is no approved vaccine.
with EFE
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