Congo’s Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 1,000 people

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

At least 999 peo­ple have died from the Ebo­la out­break in Con­go, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cial da­ta pub­lished overnight in­to Wednes­day, a grim toll in what’s al­ready been de­clared the fastest Ebo­la out­break in his­to­ry.

The lat­est up­date from Con­go’s Min­istry of Health shows that as of Mon­day, 2,473 cas­es have been record­ed in the lat­est out­break, and 999 peo­ple have died. At least 737 pa­tients are cur­rent­ly in iso­la­tion and hos­pi­tals, it said.

The out­break de­clared on May 15 is un­like most pre­vi­ous Ebo­la out­breaks be­cause the Bundibu­gyo virus re­spon­si­ble for it has no ap­proved vac­cines or treat­ments.

It has al­so killed more peo­ple at a quick­er rate than any out­break on record, in­clud­ing the 2013-2016 out­break that is con­sid­ered the worst on record with over 11,000 deaths out of at least 28,000 cas­es. That out­break took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

Ebo­la is rare, but high­ly con­ta­gious and can be con­tract­ed via bod­i­ly flu­ids such as vom­it, blood or se­men. The dis­ease it caus­es is se­vere and of­ten fa­tal.

Of­fi­cials have al­so warned that 80% of new cas­es have emerged through un­known chains of trans­mis­sion, a sign the out­break is spread­ing faster than health of­fi­cials can track it even as they step up their re­sponse in Ituri province, the epi­cen­ter of the out­break, as well as in four oth­er provinces where cas­es have been record­ed.

At­tacks on health fa­cil­i­ties and re­sponse teams have al­so forced front­line work­ers and aid groups out of some ar­eas. Some health work­ers have gone on strike, com­plain­ing that they haven’t been paid since the out­break start­ed.

Speak­ing at the Africa health sum­mit in Ghana on Tues­day, Dr. Jean Kaseya, the Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al of Africa Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion, called for in­ten­si­fied ef­forts to slow the out­break.

“If we do not stop this out­break to­day, it could be­come one of the worst Ebo­la out­breaks the world has ever doc­u­ment­ed,” Kaseya said. —BUNIA, Con­go (AP)