Nairobi.- The Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has already caused more than 500 deaths since it was declared on May 15, continues to spread and its “true magnitude” is unknown, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Tuesday.
“The outbreak continues to expand and its true magnitude has not yet been fully determined,” stressed in a statement the WHO representative to the DRC, Anne Ancia, who is in Bunia, capital of the Ituri province, the epicenter of the epidemic.
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As of July 4, the Congolese government recorded 1,561 confirmed cases, including 506 deaths and 254 recoveries.
The epidemic spread to neighboring Uganda, where 20 confirmed infections have been detected, including 15 cases imported from the DRC and among which there are two deaths.
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In the DRC, the WHO representative specified, “more than 10,000 contacts are being monitored, with an overall follow-up rate of 82%.”
Treatment centers have also been established, offering about 700 beds across 22 facilities, and “efforts are underway to add 300 more beds,” he emphasized.
Major challenges
“Despite the encouraging progress, we continue to face major challenges. Existing treatment centers are operating at around 90% occupancy, which puts significant pressure on the response,” he highlighted.
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Ancia stressed that population movements, persistent insecurity in a conflict zone between the Congolese Army and rebel groups, and the fragility of the health system “continue to complicate efforts to control the outbreak.”
Furthermore, he emphasized, humanitarian needs remain “considerable” regarding the protection of the civilian population, access to food and essential health services, while other diseases such as malaria and measles continue to spread.
Despite everything, laboratory capacity has increased from 30 tests per day in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, to more than 2,000 tests per day thanks to ten decentralized laboratories established in the affected provinces.
The outbreak was declared in Ituri, a province bordering Uganda and South Sudan, but it expanded to the also eastern Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu.
On July 2, a clinical trial of two “promising therapies” began to identify effective treatments against the Bundibugyo strain, which is causing the current outbreak and for which there is neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment.
The WHO maintains its commitment to support the Congolese Government and its partners to strengthen the response, but it needs 115 million dollars (about 100.5 million euros), of which it has received 32%, according to Ancia.
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The UN agency considers the risk of the outbreak spreading in sub-Saharan Africa to be “high” and “low” on a global scale.
The WHO estimates that the virus began circulating in Ituri about two months before the outbreak was declared, and on May 17, it classified the epidemic as a “public health emergency of international concern.”
This is the third worst Ebola epidemic recorded to date.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids from infected people or animals and causes severe hemorrhagic fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding.
