Confirmed Ebola cases in Congo outbreak top 1,000 with 254 deaths, authorities say

Con­firmed cas­es in the Ebo­la out­break in east­ern Con­go have reached 1,003, in­clud­ing 254 deaths, of­fi­cials said, as trac­ing those who had been in con­tact with pa­tients re­mains a ma­jor chal­lenge.

A to­tal of 100 peo­ple have re­cov­ered in the out­break con­cen­trat­ed in the Ituri province since it was de­clared on May 15, Con­go’s Min­istry of Health said Sun­day. At least 365 pa­tients are in hos­pi­tals or in iso­la­tion, it said.

The Ebo­la out­break caused by the rare Bundibu­gyo virus, which has no vac­cines or treat­ment, was the worst ever in its first month. Of­fi­cials ad­mit there could be far more cas­es they still don’t know about and that the peak of the out­break is still ahead.

Con­tact trac­ing re­mains a key is­sue for lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, who have on­ly achieved a 55% cov­er­age rate, the min­istry said.

“If you want to con­trol an out­break, es­pe­cial­ly Ebo­la out­break, you must know the in­dex case. We don’t have con­fi­dence on when this out­break start­ed,” the Africa Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Dr. Jean Kaseya told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press last week.

Of­fi­cials al­so are yet to iden­ti­fy the pa­tient ze­ro and trace more than 35,000 peo­ple who have come in con­tact with in­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als as of last week, au­thor­i­ties said.

That’s part­ly be­cause east­ern Con­go is al­so bat­tling on­go­ing vi­o­lence from rebels. In Ituri, at­tacks by the Is­lam­ic State group-backed Al­lied De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Force have cut off ac­cess to many vil­lages and forced peo­ple to flee their homes, in­clud­ing those shel­ter­ing in over­crowd­ed camps and oth­ers con­stant­ly on the move.

More than a month in­to the out­break, of­fi­cials be­lieve the dis­ease con­tin­ues to out­pace re­sponse ef­forts and no one knows its true scale.

Dis­placed per­sons at risk as un­ex­plained deaths re­port­ed in a camp

At the Kigonze dis­place­ment camp in Bunia, the cap­i­tal of Ituri province, camp of­fi­cials said Fri­day that 10 peo­ple had died last week in un­usu­al cir­cum­stances, rais­ing the fear of a pos­si­ble out­break in the camp of over 20,000 dis­placed peo­ple.

There had been no Ebo­la case con­firmed at the site, camp of­fi­cials said, but added that the death rate was un­prece­dent­ed and called for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The U.N. refugee agency has said at least 2 mil­lion peo­ple forcibly dis­placed from their homes, in­clud­ing over 320,000 refugees, live in ar­eas at risk of Ebo­la in Con­go.

In a state­ment on Fri­day, the agency said it was “deeply con­cerned by the ac­cel­er­at­ing spread” of the virus and “the grow­ing risks it pos­es to dis­placed com­mu­ni­ties across the re­gion.”

“If a dis­ease or epi­dem­ic were to spread among the thou­sands of peo­ple liv­ing at this (Kigonze) site, it would be a re­al cat­a­stro­phe giv­en our al­ready very pre­car­i­ous liv­ing con­di­tions,” said Char­ité Ban­za, a civ­il so­ci­ety leader in Ituri. —BUNIA, Con­go (AP)

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Sto­ry by JUSTIN KABUM­BA and CON­STANT SAME BAGAL­WA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press