As DR Congo Ebola outbreak tops 5,500 cases, calls for more resources intensify

One-hundred days after the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), officials are urging more funding, and health officials warn that the official total may be a significant undercount.

The official tally is 2,642 deaths and 5,515 infections, but “we are detecting just 30 to 40%,” Kyeng Mercy, PhD, MPH, epidemic intelligence unit lead at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said at a press briefing last week. “If you have to look at the real burden, we should be over 10,000 to 15,000 cases.”

Abdulsalami Nasidi, MD, PhD, who helped launch the Africa CDC, told Al Jazeera that the outbreak was “getting out of hand. This is no longer just a national or regional issue; it is a global issue. If it spreads to neighbouring places with lower immunity, it will be a disaster.”

‘A defining moment’

In a press release today, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that viral spread is outpacing control measures, necessitating a dramatic increase in all response efforts. 

“A daily average of around 90 confirmed cases has been recorded in the first three months, markedly higher than the rate observed in the same period during the 2014–2016 West Africa and the 2018–2020 Democratic Republic of the Congo outbreaks,” the WHO said. “The outbreak has now expanded to a sixth province, with Ituri remaining the epicentre, accounting for about 85% of cases and 79% of deaths.” 

Deaths occurring outside Ebola treatment centers have made up about 60% of the 260 weekly fatalities in the past six weeks, the organization said. At this point, the outbreak can be controlled only through scaled-up action led by national, provincial, and local leaders and backed by provision of adequate resources and cross-border collaboration.

“This outbreak has reached a defining moment,” Mohamed Janabi, MD, PhD, WHO regional director for Africa, said in the release. “We now need to significantly step up the response: moving faster to detect cases, reaching communities sooner and strengthening operations where they are needed most.”

Every delay in funding makes outbreak more deadly

Half of all deaths have occurred in the past 20 days, United Nations senior Ebola coordinator Julien Harneis, MS, MBA, told reporters in Bunia last week. “The epidemic is spreading to an area that is bigger than France,” he said. “And the outbreak is growing faster and wider than the Ebola response.”