The Ebo­la out­break in Con­go and Ugan­da has claimed more than 200 lives in its first month and is the worst known out­break at this stage, with up to 35,000 sus­pect­ed po­ten­tial con­tacts, Africa’s Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion said on Thurs­day.

With 894 con­firmed cas­es so far, the cur­rent out­break is three times worse than a pre­vi­ous out­break in Ugan­da in 2000, which had 281 cas­es at the same point, said Dr. Wes­sam Mank­oula, a med­ical epi­demi­ol­o­gist at Africa CDC.

The lat­est num­ber of cas­es is be­lieved to be high­er be­cause the out­break was con­firmed on May 15, weeks af­ter it was sus­pect­ed to have be­gun. The num­ber of cas­es has in­creased 38% since last week and is now in 32 health zones across east­ern Con­go, said Mank­oula.