At least 131 deaths and over 500 suspected cases have been reported in the latest Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, the Congolese health ministry said yesterday as the World Health Organisation’s head expressed concern over the “scale and speed of the epidemic.”
The virus spread undetected for at least a few weeks since the first person died of the virus, health experts and aid workers said, and the delayed response is now complicating efforts to curb the outbreak.
Congo’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, said 513 suspected cases and 131 deaths have been recorded, though he added “these are suspected deaths, and investigations are underway to determine which ones are actually linked to the disease.” The numbers mark a sharp increase from Monday, when officials said there were 300 suspected cases, and highlight the largely unknown scale of the outbreak.
The World Health Organisation’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he is “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic” and the U.N. health agency will convene its emergency committee later yesterday.
He said the emergence of cases in urban areas, the deaths of healthcare workers, significant population movement in the area and a lack of vaccines and therapeutics are the main reasons for concern “for further spread and further deaths.”
Health authorities say the outbreak, first confirmed Friday, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare variant of the Ebola disease that has no approved therapeutics or vaccines. The WHO declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday.
Cases have been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu’s rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo, and Nyakunde. There has also been one case and one death reported in Uganda in people who traveled from Congo.
An American doctor is among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, medical director of the country’s National Institute of Bio-Medical Research. Dr. Peter Stafford had been treating patients at a hospital there when he developed symptoms, Serge, the organization he works for, said in a statement.
Three others employees of Serge were working at the same hospital, including Stafford’s wife, but are not showing symptoms.
Congo has said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, and the body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.
“That caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,” said Kamba, the health minister.
When another person fell ill on April 26, samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control.
Samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common type of Ebola, Zaire, Congolese officials said. They came back negative, said Dr. Richard Kitenge, the Health Ministry Incident Manager for Ebola, and local authorities assumed it was not Ebola.
On May 5, the WHO was alerted of about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu, including four health workers, which prompted further tests. The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14.” -AP
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