“A single death can lead to up to 17 cases of transmission,” Newport said.
A semblance of normality still prevails on the streets of Bunia, but many of its population of nearly one million are anxious.
“I saw three members of the same family die in the space of a week. It scared me so much,” says Heritier Bomengo, a motorbike taxi driver, who, like many of his colleagues, has stocked up on hand sanitiser.
Cases of Ebola, which spreads through close contact and infected bodily fluids, have also been found in four other DRC provinces.
The cases found in Uganda were mostly Congolese citizens who crossed the border, and the country says it has gone three weeks without registering any new cases.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned last week that the outbreak had over the past month “expanded faster than any previous outbreak” of Ebola.
Despite a ramping up of the response, “the outbreak remains ahead of us and we are still in a phase of catching up”, Thierno Balde, WHO’s incident manager for Bundibugyo virus in DRC, told reporters on Tuesday.
There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment for the Bundibugyo strain behind this outbreak.
But the WHO has reported “encouraging progress”, with trials for two potential treatments, a vaccine and a post-exposure prophylaxis underway on the ground.
– AFP
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