DRC Ebola outbreak “far from under control”, warns WHO

Ebola in the DRC: the outbreak is “far from under control”, warns the WHO Keystone-SDA

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is “far from being brought under control”, warned Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO).

He warned of a “high” risk that the epidemic could spread internationally.

“Three months ago, I declared the Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the DRC to be a public health emergency of international concern. Since then, the outbreak has spread rapidly and the risk of further national and international spread remains high,” said Tedros at the opening of a meeting of the Ebola Emergency Committee in Geneva.

“Nearly 5,000 people have now been infected and more than 2,300 have died, across six provinces and 55 health zones. Let’s be frank: the outbreak is far from under control,” he warned.

On May 15, several weeks late, the DRC declared its 17th Ebola outbreak in northern and eastern regions where state authority is weak, health infrastructure is inadequate and the response has been overwhelmed by the surge in cases.

This is the second time the WHO Emergency Committee has met since the organisation declared, on May 17, a public health emergency of international concern – its second-highest alert level.

The WHO does not know when the committee will issue its recommendations, but it seems unlikely that the alert will be lifted. The experts may, however, review the risk levels.

Alert levels

Currently, the WHO assesses the public health risk as “very high” for the DRC, “high” for Uganda and other countries bordering the DRC, and “low” for the rest of Africa and the world.

The 2018–2020 outbreak in eastern DRC, previously considered the deadliest in the country’s history, resulted in 2,299 deaths out of 3,381 confirmed cases, according to WHO figures, based on data from the Congolese authorities.

Furthermore, in three months, seven times as many cases and five times as many deaths were recorded in the DRC as during the first three months of the largest Ebola outbreak in history, which claimed more than 11,300 lives in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, according to the African Union’s health agency (Africa CDC).

The current outbreak in the DRC is now “the second-largest” Ebola outbreak “ever recorded and is spreading faster than any previous ones”, Tedros said.

“It has gained a considerable lead, and we are still playing catch-up,” he said, explaining that the outbreak is “fuelled by insecurity, population displacement and heavy movement of people along roads, waterways and access routes to mining sites”.

Uganda, a neighbouring country of the DRC, recorded 20 confirmed cases, including two deaths, and announced in mid-July that it no longer had any patients infected with the virus.

Ebola, which is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids and causes haemorrhagic fever, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.

There is no approved vaccine or specific treatment for Bundibugyo, but clinical trials are underway.

Engaging with communities

A myriad of armed groups are active in the regions affected by the outbreak, further complicating access to communities, according to humanitarian organisations. The response has also been criticised for its slowness and lack of organisation.

Many patients die “outside treatment centres and without having been identified on the lists of known contacts”, Tedros said.

This mistrust within the community is believed to explain the “rise in cases and deaths over the last three or four weeks”, Dieudonné Mwamba, director of the Congolese National Institute of Public Health (INSP), told AFP on Tuesday. “We need to adopt other strategies” and “be innovative”, he said.

The European Union announced on Tuesday that it was sending screening tests worth €2.5 million.

At a press briefing, WHO expert, Thierno Baldé, explained that the health response was being stepped up and decentralised in order to work more closely with communities, particularly the motorbike taxis responsible for transporting patients, which the organisation hopes to integrate into the surveillance system.

“The WHO and its partners expect to see the impact of this scaled-up response in the coming months, but cannot set a timetable for when the outbreak will be brought under control,” he said.

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Translated from French, reviewed by an English Department journalist.