Ebola cases in Congo top 3,200, nearing record of the country’s worst outbreak

Con­firmed cas­es in Con­go’s on­go­ing Ebo­la out­break have reached 3,262, its Min­istry of Health said in an overnight up­date, near­ly the same as the 2018-2020 out­break that is the largest ever record­ed in the coun­try.

Da­ta from the Con­golese health min­istry showed that 1,437 pa­tients have died out of the 3,262 cas­es, in what of­fi­cials have said is the fastest Ebo­la out­break on record, con­cen­trat­ed in the east­ern Ituri province.

The 2018-2020 out­break that was record­ed in Con­go and neigh­bour­ing Ugan­da last­ed rough­ly two years, with more than 3,400 re­port­ed cas­es, in­clud­ing over 2,200 deaths, ac­cord­ing to the U.S. Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol.

On­ly the 2014-2016 out­break across West Africa, con­sid­ered the worst in his­to­ry, had a high­er toll with 28,000 cas­es and more than 11,000 deaths.

The speed of trans­mis­sion in the cur­rent out­break comes amid con­cerns from res­i­dents that many com­mu­ni­ties in the af­fect­ed provinces are ei­ther un­reach­able or have been aban­doned by re­spon­ders in re­cent days over safe­ty con­cerns amid at­tacks from an­gry res­i­dents and rebels.

“The fact that, in just 10 weeks, we have reached near­ly the same num­ber of cas­es record­ed over an al­most two-year out­break is alarm­ing and should stop us in our tracks,” One­spho­re Ban­gen­za, Mer­cy Corps re­sponse team lead in Bunia, Ituri’s cap­i­tal, said Tues­day.

“There is no doubt that the virus is mov­ing faster than we can con­tain it,” Ban­gen­za added.

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

Ef­forts to slow the trans­mis­sion have been chal­lenged by rebel vi­o­lence in east­ern Con­go as well as health work­ers strik­ing to protest the non­pay­ment of their wages.

The out­break con­tin­ues to spread faster than health of­fi­cials can track de­spite an ex­pand­ing re­sponse. A key chal­lenge is that pa­tient ze­ro has yet to be iden­ti­fied in the out­break while dis­place­ment from armed con­flict and il­le­gal min­ing in the re­gion have made it dif­fi­cult to trace thou­sands who have come in con­tact with in­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als.

De­spite dis­trust be­tween com­mu­ni­ties and health work­ers most­ly seen at the ear­ly stages of the out­break, signs of progress have emerged.

“We can nev­er again wage war against the Ebo­la teams. We have lost mem­bers of our fam­i­lies. As a com­mu­ni­ty, we have a vest­ed in­ter­est in fight­ing Ebo­la to re­turn to nor­mal life,” said Fab­rice Mumbe­sa, a res­i­dent of Mongb­walu, a min­ing town at the cen­tre of the out­break where res­i­dents pre­vi­ous­ly burned down sev­er­al treat­ment cen­tres.

Neigh­bour­ing Ugan­da de­clared its Ebo­la out­break over, au­thor­i­ties said on Tues­day. The East African coun­try says it is “free” of Ebo­la af­ter the last pa­tient was dis­charged in mid-June. It has al­ways in­sist­ed that its cas­es were im­port­ed from Con­go. — BUNIA, Con­go (AP)

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Sto­ry by CON­STANT SAME BAGAL­WA and WIL­SON MC­MAKIN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Wil­son Mc­Makin re­port­ed from Dakar, Sene­gal