The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is spreading faster than any previous outbreak of the disease, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that it could extend to more countries.
WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, raised the alarm on Tuesday during an emergency meeting on the outbreak, saying the situation remained far from being brought under control.
“We must be frank: the epidemic is far from being under control,” Tedros said.
“It had a big head start, and we are still playing catch-up.”
His warning came a day after the DRC announced that more than 2,300 people had died from nearly 5,000 reported cases, making it the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the country’s history.
The outbreak, the DRC’s 17th, was officially declared on May 15, although health authorities believe the virus had been spreading for several weeks before the declaration.
According to Tedros, the outbreak has been worsened by insecurity, displacement and the movement of people along roads, rivers and mining routes.
He urged governments to strengthen cooperation in containing the disease and said the WHO would issue fresh recommendations to the DRC and other countries considered at risk.
Tedros said the virus, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes severe haemorrhagic fever, “is moving faster than any previous Ebola outbreak”.
Data from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) showed that within three months of the outbreak being declared, the DRC had recorded seven times more cases and five times more deaths than were reported during the first three months of the 2013-2016 West African Ebola epidemic.
The earlier outbreak, the deadliest in history, killed more than 11,300 people, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The current outbreak has so far affected six provinces in the DRC, including areas close to the South Sudan border, while cases have also been reported in neighbouring Uganda.
“The risk of further national and international spread remains high,” Tedros warned.
The WHO currently rates the public health risk as “very high” within the DRC and “high” for Uganda and other neighbouring countries, while the risk remains “low” for the rest of Africa and the world.
Tedros said the biggest concern was that many people were dying at home or in their communities, outside treatment centres and without being identified as contacts of known cases.
“What concerns me most is where people are dying: at home, in their communities, outside treatment centres, and outside known contact lists.
“Every death like that points to a chain of transmission we have not yet found,” he added, warning that “until every chain is found and broken, the epidemic will continue.”
WHO expert Thierno Balde said the agency was working to expand and decentralise the response by taking services closer to affected communities.
He said efforts were also being made to strengthen disease surveillance and protect motorcycle taxi operators who transport patients.
WHO said it expects the expanded response to begin making an impact in the coming months, although it could not give a specific timeline for when the outbreak would be brought under control.
