KINSHASA, Aug. 22 — The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has surpassed 5,300 confirmed cases and 2,550 deaths, as a senior United Nations official warned that the country’s deadliest-ever Ebola epidemic is “growing exponentially” and outpacing the response.
The DRC has recorded 5,375 confirmed cases and 2,557 deaths across six provinces as of Thursday, according to the latest figures released Saturday by the country’s public health authorities.
The overall case fatality rate stood at 47.6 percent. A total of 1,167 patients have recovered. Briefing reporters Friday from Bunia, capital of Ituri province, UN Senior Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis warned that the outbreak was “growing exponentially,” with half of all deaths recorded in just the previous 20 days.
“The epidemic is spreading to an area that is bigger than France,” Harneis said, warning that the outbreak was “growing faster and wider than the Ebola response.”
The epidemic, declared by the DRC government on May 15, has already become the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the country’s history and the second-largest on record globally, behind only the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic.
Harneis said responders were operating under “brutal” conditions, citing insecurity, poor roads, attacks on frontline workers and health facilities, as well as weak basic services and difficulties in moving funds into affected areas.
Three months into the outbreak, 160 healthcare workers have contracted Ebola and 43 have died, he said. Ambulances have been burned or stoned and healthcare facilities attacked in some affected communities.
Funding shortages have also emerged as a major concern. “We’re only covered for the next weeks, and very soon funding will run out,” Harneis said, calling for immediate international support.
“Every delay in funding and implementation makes this epidemic more deadly, more difficult to stop and more expensive,” he warned.
Harneis said humanitarian organizations operating in the region had lost more than 30 percent of their capacity amid cuts to aid funding over the past two years, although UN agencies, the DRC authorities and humanitarian partners continue to scale up disease surveillance, treatment, safe burials and community engagement.
The latest warning comes as international partners move to reinforce the response. The World Health Organization said earlier this week that 70,000 doses of the Ervebo Ebola vaccine had been approved for immediate release to the DRC, including 20,000 doses for a Phase 3 clinical trial and 50,000 for frontline and health workers.
A first batch of 16,520 doses of the Ervebo vaccine arrived late Friday in the capital Kinshasa. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
