By Erikas Mwisi
BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 18 (Reuters) – Medical personnel were rushing on Monday to the frontlines of a new Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo whose late detection and quick spread have alarmed health experts.
The World Health Organization on Sunday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern because of the high risk the disease could spread further beyond DRC’s borders after two cases were confirmed in Kampala, the capital of neighbouring Uganda.
The outbreak is suspected to have killed around 80 people in recent weeks, with eight cases confirmed by laboratory testing and 246 suspected cases reported in eastern DRC’s Ituri province.
Another case was confirmed in neighbouring North Kivu province’s capital, Goma, according to the M23 rebels who control the city. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said on Sunday that it was supporting partners withdrawing a small number of directly affected Americans.
A delegation led by DRC Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba arrived in Ituri’s capital Bunia on Sunday with tents to set up treatment centres to support strained local hospitals.
“This is not a mystical disease,” he told Reuters. “Make yourself known so that you can be taken care of and so that we can prevent the disease from spreading.”
WHO’s representative in DRC, Anne Ancia, said WHO had emptied its stocks of protective equipment in the capital Kinshasa and was now preparing a cargo plane to bring additional supplies from a depot in Kenya.
The International Rescue Committee and Medecins Sans Frontieres aid groups said on Monday they had teams responding to the outbreak.
PREVIOUS OUTBREAK RESPONSE WAS COMPLICATED BY INSECURITY
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, which unlike the more common Zaire strain of Ebola, has no approved virus-specific therapeutics, or vaccine.
An outbreak from 2018-2020 in North Kivu and Ituri provinces was the second deadliest on record, killing nearly 2,300 people.
The response to that outbreak was complicated by widespread armed violence in eastern Congo and distrust of first responders by locals. In recent weeks, clashes between rival armed groups in Ituri have killed scores of civilians, worsening an already-dire humanitarian situation.
Jean Pierre Badombo, the former mayor of Mongbwalu, a mining town in Ituri at the epicentre of the outbreak, said people started falling ill in mid-April after a large open-casket funeral procession arrived from Bunia.
“After that, we experienced a cascade of deaths,” he said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that WHO first learned of suspected cases on May 5 and dispatched a team to Ituri, but samples collected in the field initially tested negative. Subsequent tests in Kinshasa confirmed positive cases on May 14, and WHO declared the outbreak the following day.
Lievin Bangali, IRC’s senior health coordinator in DRC, said declining funding from international donors had weakened disease detection.
“When surveillance networks break down, dangerous diseases like Ebola are able to spread further and faster before communities and health workers can respond,” he said.
UGANDA POSTPONES MARTYR’S DAY HOLIDAY
Congo has experienced 17 outbreaks of Ebola since the virus was first identified in the country in 1976. The disease spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons or contaminated materials.
According to WHO, the average fatality rate from Ebola is around 50%, varying from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks.
Uganda on Sunday postponed next month’s celebrations of Martyrs’ Day, a national holiday that typically attracts thousands of pilgrims from eastern DRC, because of the outbreak.
Kithula Haggai Sunday, a doctor at Uganda’s health ministry, told an online briefing that several people from western Uganda who had recently gone to a burial in eastern Congo and then returned home were under observation, with some who developed symptoms taken to the city of Fort Portal.
(Additional reporting and writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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