Nations bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo face especially elevated dangers from the Ebola outbreak and must take immediate action to counter the deadly virus, the head of the World Health Organization has warned.
“Countries bordering DRC are at especially high risk and should take immediate action,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that he would travel to the DRC, the vast central African country at the epicentre of the current outbreak, reports RTE.
“The outbreak is spreading rapidly,” Dr Tedros told a virtual ministerial meeting on the viral haemorrhagic fever, which spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids and can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.
He said the current outbreak was “especially challenging,” explaining that the delay in detecting it meant authorities were “playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic,” and that while operations were being urgently scaled up, “at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us,” reports RTE.
Secondly, the eastern provinces of the DRC where the outbreak was first detected in mid-May were described as “highly insecure, with intensified fighting in recent months,” and he noted there was “also significant distrust of outside authorities among the local population.”
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Thirdly, he pointed out there were “no approved vaccines or therapeutics” for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind the current outbreak, reports RTE.
The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed Ebola deaths and 220 suspected deaths in the DRC since mid-May, while also recording a further 900 suspected cases since Kinshasa declared the outbreak on 15 May.
The United Nations agency said the true spread of the virus — which experts suspect was circulating under the radar for some time — was probably much wider, reports RTE.
One person is confirmed dead in neighbouring Uganda, with a further six confirmed infected, while ten other African countries — Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia — have been placed “at risk” of infection by the African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC.
Africa CDC head Jean Kaseya said “high mobility and insecurity” contributed to the regional spread of the outbreak, which the WHO has declared an international emergency, reports RTE.
Insecurity is a huge obstacle in the eastern DRC, which has been ravaged for three decades by conflict involving a multitude of armed groups, with state services in rural areas of Ituri province largely absent for decades.
Two hospitals in Ituri have been attacked by suspicious locals in the past five days, with tents used to isolate Ebola patients in Rwampara torched after a deceased man’s family was prevented from taking his body for burial, reports RTE.
Dr Tedros said the WHO was pouring money, medical supplies and staff into the DRC to support authorities and speeding up clinical trials on potential treatments.
“It will get worse before it gets better,” he said. “But we know this virus and we know how to stop it,” reports RTE.
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