DR Congo’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak reaches sixth province

DR Congo’s Ebola outbreak has spread to a sixth province after a death was recorded in the previously unaffected Bas-Uele province.

Africa CDC director-general Jean Kaseya said on Thursday that the man had travelled from Isiro in Haut-Uele province to Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, where he died.

The outbreak in the country’s east is considered the fastest-growing yet, and is on track to surpass the deadliest in history, which killed over 11,000 people a decade ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the outbreak.

It has killed over 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures – surpassing this grim milestone almost three times faster than the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak.

The tackling of the outbreak has been hindered by disinformation that Ebola isn’t real, strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats from rebel groups, and anger from traumatised communities.

Health workers at the Nizi Treatment Centre in Ituri province, one of the most affected in the area, went on strike on Thursday, alleging they had not been paid for three months and leading to the temporary closure of the centre.

The real scope of the outbreak remains unknown.

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Health authorities say between 60% and 70% of new cases are recorded outside contacts being monitored, and that the disease is spreading at an “alarming” rate.

“We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us,” the WHO regional director for Africa, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said this week.

Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri, the worst-affected province.