KINSHASA:
Confirmed Ebola deaths in Democratic Republic of Congo have surpassed 1,000, prompting Africa’s top public health official to warn the outbreak could become one of the worst on record unless transmission is rapidly brought under control.
The number of fatal cases has doubled in just over two weeks, with the National Institute of Public Health reporting 2,536 cases and 1,033 deaths on Thursday. The death toll has climbed from 506 on July 4, with the epidemic spreading into two new provinces beyond its original epicentre in Ituri.
“If we do not stop this outbreak today, it could become one of the worst Ebola outbreaks the world has ever documented,” Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told a health summit in Accra, Ghana, on Tuesday.
The grim milestone underscores how a rare Ebola virus with no approved vaccine or treatment has gained a foothold in one of the world’s most fragile regions – where conflict, displacement and weak health systems have repeatedly frustrated efforts to identify cases, isolate patients and trace their contacts.
A United Nations assessment last month warned the outbreak could shave more than US$1 billion from the country’s economy, push almost 1 million more people into poverty, and ripple across neighbouring states.
Half of the 34 newly-confirmed deaths on Wednesday were recorded in the community rather than treatment centres, suggesting many patients are still dying before they can be isolated.
Health officials are also struggling to keep pace with contact tracing. The number of identified contacts under follow-up has climbed to almost 14,000, while only 77% were successfully monitored in the latest reporting period, well below the level typically needed to interrupt Ebola transmission.
“This outbreak remains ahead of us and we are still in the phase of catching up,” Thierno Baldé, the World Health Organization’s incident manager, told reporters from Ituri’s provincial capital Bunia. Responders are expanding treatment capacity, referral systems and safe burial teams in the hardest-hit areas, he said.
The outbreak, declared in eastern Congo on May 15, is the fastest-growing Ebola epidemic on record. Only two have caused more deaths: the 2013-16 West African epidemic, which killed 11,308 people, and the 2018-20 outbreak in eastern Congo, which claimed 2,287 lives, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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