‘We’re still behind’ in Congo’s Ebola outbreak even as testing improves, WHO says

Con­go’s Ebo­la out­break “had a big head start, and we’re still be­hind,” World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus said Wednes­day, but as­sert­ed that “we are catch­ing up” as test­ing im­proves.

Ac­cord­ing to Con­golese au­thor­i­ties, 344 cas­es in­clud­ing 60 deaths have been con­firmed of the rare Bundibu­gyo type of Ebo­la since the out­break was an­nounced in mid-May in the east­ern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. The num­ber of sus­pect­ed cas­es is down from 906 to 116.

Neigh­bor­ing Ugan­da has 15 con­firmed cas­es in­clud­ing one death, its health min­istry said Tues­day.

The WHO chief avoid­ed a ques­tion about a U.S. quar­an­tine cen­ter in Kenya that has drawn protests, say­ing that “I think based on their risk as­sess­ment … they can do what­ev­er they think is right for them.”

Ex­perts have said the virus spread for weeks in one of the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble re­gions be­fore lab test­ing con­firmed it. Re­sources, in­clud­ing pro­tec­tive gear, have been rushed to the out­break for a type of Ebo­la with no ap­proved med­i­cine or vac­cine.

At least five peo­ple have re­cov­ered from the virus, rare signs of hope.

“The true ex­tent of the out­break re­mains dif­fi­cult to as­sess. Ex­treme­ly lim­it­ed test­ing ca­pac­i­ty and dif­fi­cul­ties ac­cess­ing cer­tain ar­eas ne­ces­si­tate in­ter­pret­ing these fig­ures with cau­tion,” Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders, said Mon­day of case num­bers.

Get­ting a po­ten­tial vac­cine to the re­gion could take months.

“It’s dif­fi­cult to have an ef­fec­tive vac­cine that ad­heres to the sci­en­tif­ic pro­to­col avail­able quick­ly,” Dr. Aruna Abe­di, a Con­golese epi­demi­ol­o­gist who has man­aged pre­vi­ous out­breaks in the coun­try, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

While lab­o­ra­to­ry and di­ag­nos­tic re­sources im­prove for the out­break, Tedros said the trac­ing of peo­ple who had con­tact with in­fect­ed peo­ple in Con­go is still be­hind.

“On­ly about 45% of con­tacts have been fol­lowed up, and to get ahead of the out­break we need to get that num­ber up to above 90%,” he said. “In­se­cu­ri­ty, dis­place­ment and mo­bile pop­u­la­tions make con­tact trac­ing es­pe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult.”

Armed groups ac­tive in the re­gion in­clude the Rwan­da-backed M23 rebel group that seized key cities Go­ma and Bukavu over a year ago, and an Is­lam­ic State-al­lied group called the Al­lied De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Forces that op­er­ates in the bor­der re­gion be­tween Con­go and Ugan­da. In­se­cu­ri­ty over the years has cre­at­ed a huge and vul­ner­a­ble dis­placed pop­u­la­tion.

Wary res­i­dents have at­tacked health cen­tres in the out­break, at times de­mand­ing the bod­ies of loved ones. Health work­ers al­so have been bat­tling mis­tak­en be­liefs among some res­i­dents that Ebo­la isn’t re­al, which has kept some from seek­ing care. (AP)

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Sto­ry by OPE ADE­TAYO and GEIR MOUL­SON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Geir Moul­son re­port­ed from Berlin. Jean Yves Ka­male in Kin­shasa con­tributed.