The World Health Organization on Wednesday announced that the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on pace to become the deadliest in history.

In a press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the current Ebola epidemic is already the second-largest ever recorded, and “is moving faster than any previous Ebola outbreak.”

“At its current pace,” Tedros added, “it is on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016.”

There have been more 4,400 confirmed cases and over 2,000 deaths during the current outbreak, with 80% of deaths occurring in the Ituri province in the northeastern corner of the country.

The WHO chief said he was particularly concerned that many deaths in the region are happening in communities instead of in treatment centers, which suggests there are “chains of transmission we don’t know about” and need to be tracked down to contain the outbreak.

“The outbreak had a big head start,” he said, “it is still way ahead of us, and we are playing catch-up.”

Tedros also shared some encouraging news about the epidemic, highlighting nearly 900 Ebola patients who have recovered “even without specific therapeutics and vaccines,” which he noted were still undergoing clinical trials.

“For the first time, two vaccines specifically designed against Ebola Bundibugyo virus have now entered phase one safety trials in humans,” he said. “In addition, two new animal studies of the vaccine against Zaire ebolavirus—the more common species—have shown promising evidence of cross protection in animals. On that basis, WHO has recommended inclusion of the vaccine in a phase three trial, which we hope to start as soon as possible.”

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