The number of deaths has been reached almost three times faster than during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which was the deadliest Ebola outbreak recorded before the current crisis. The current outbreak is already the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history. It remains behind the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, which recorded more than 28,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths. The current outbreak has a case fatality rate of 45.9%, compared with 39.6% during the West Africa outbreak. The first Ebola virus was identified in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.