The World Health Organization (WHO) stated on Wednesday (3) that the response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is gaining ground, at a time when the country has recorded 344 confirmed cases of the disease and 60 confirmed deaths, although several challenges remain, Reuters reported.
“The outbreak had a big head start and we are still behind, but under the leadership of the DRC government, we are gaining ground,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference.
The outbreak, linked to the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, has also spread to Uganda, where 15 cases have been confirmed, including one death, the agency reported.
Access to testing has also improved, which is why hundreds of cases initially considered suspected Ebola cases have since been ruled out, according to the World Health Organization. The most common tests used to detect the disease do not identify the Bundibugyo strain responsible for this outbreak, which caused a delay in analyzing the cases.
“What the team on the ground is doing is clearing the backlog of cases. To date, the laboratory has conducted 1,445 tests, which has cleared almost the entire backlog, and new suspected cases are emerging every day as surveillance improves,” said Abdirahman Mahamud, director of health emergency alert and response operations at the WHO.
According to the official, there are still 116 suspected cases awaiting testing. A team is also investigating 220 suspected deaths to determine the likelihood that they were caused by Ebola.
Six people have recovered from the disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and two in Uganda, demonstrating that patients can survive if they have access to healthcare and seek treatment immediately after symptoms appear, the WHO added.
The response to the outbreak continues to face challenges in scaling up testing capacity and contact tracing, while widespread travel restrictions imposed by some countries are disrupting supply chains and hampering efforts to combat the disease.
Only about 45% of identified contacts have been followed up. To effectively control the outbreak, that percentage must exceed 90%, Tedros emphasized.
The WHO Director-General also stated that the outbreak may have begun as early as January, although teams continue to investigate that possibility. Nevertheless, he stressed that the current priority is to contain the spread of the disease.
To this end, the international health agency will need at least $115 million over the next three months, of which about 35% has already been raised, said the organization’s director of emergencies, Chikwe Ihekweazu, adding that “much more” funding will be needed throughout the response.
A more comprehensive plan and a fundraising campaign will be launched on Friday in partnership with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), as well as with the governments of the DRC and Uganda, he concluded.
