Majority of new Ebola cases are ‘from unknown chains of transmission,’ WHO official says

The Ebo­la out­break in east­ern Con­go “con­tin­ues to out­pace the re­sponse ef­forts,” the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s emer­gen­cies chief said on Tues­day af­ter re­turn­ing from a trip to Bunia, in Ituri province, which is one of the worst hit ar­eas.

“Per­haps the most alarm­ing find­ing is that many of the new­ly re­port­ed deaths are peo­ple who died in their com­mu­ni­ties with­out ever reach­ing a health fa­cil­i­ty and with­out re­ceiv­ing care,” Chik­we Ihek­weazu said. “And as of to­day, 80% of new cas­es are out­side our con­tact lists and so are com­ing to us from un­known chains of trans­mis­sion.”

Con­go has been bat­tling the out­break of a rare type of Ebo­la since May with no ap­proved treat­ment or vac­cine. The Africa Cen­tre for Dis­ease Con­trol said last week that it is the fastest-grow­ing Ebo­la out­break on the con­ti­nent.

As of Mon­day, at least 1,926 peo­ple have been in­fect­ed and 702 died in three provinces in Con­go from the rare Bundibu­gyo virus, Con­golese au­thor­i­ties said. Cas­es have al­so been con­firmed in neigh­bour­ing Ugan­da.

Last week, the U.S. Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion said a U.S. cit­i­zen work­ing for a hu­man­i­tar­i­an or­gan­i­sa­tion in Con­go has test­ed pos­i­tive for the Ebo­la virus, with­out pro­vid­ing fur­ther de­tails.

Ihek­weazu told re­porters in Gene­va that his vis­it to Bunia had been “quite en­cour­ag­ing on many fronts, but al­so deeply con­cern­ing on many fronts.”

Treat­ment ca­pac­i­ty in Bunia is now close to 800 beds, which is in­creas­ing every week, and lab ca­pac­i­ty has in­creased from one to 14 labs, while there have been im­prove­ments on oth­er fronts too.

Ihek­weazu said that de­spite “our best ef­forts ... we have not caught up in the race.”

The re­sponse has been ham­pered by a fund­ing gap, at­tacks on health cen­tres, and an on­go­ing con­flict in east­ern Con­go, as well as mis­trust among lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.

On Mon­day, dozens of peo­ple work­ing at an Ebo­la virus treat­ment cen­tre in north-east Con­go went on strike over un­paid salaries and bonus­es.

The Con­golese au­thor­i­ties de­clared a fresh Ebo­la out­break on May 15 af­ter the dis­ease had been trans­mit­ting for weeks with­out of­fi­cial de­tec­tion, ac­cord­ing to the WHO.

Clin­i­cal tri­als for treat­ment be­gan last week af­ter re­searchers launched a high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed study in the hope of fight­ing the virus. —(AP)

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Sto­ry by GEIR MOUL­SON and MONI­KA PRON­CZUK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press