An Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has already claimed over 130 lives, is believed to have begun two months ago and is forecast to continue to grow, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday.
The rare Bundibugyo strain, for which no vaccine currently exists, was officially declared last Friday.
However, its prolonged, undetected spread across a heavily populated region has raised significant alarm among experts, complicating efforts to trace and isolate infected individuals and their contacts.
The WHO had previously highlighted a “critical four-week detection gap” between the onset of symptoms in the first known case and the laboratory confirmation of the outbreak.
“Investigations are ongoing to ascertain when and where exactly this outbreak started,” Anais Legand, WHO technical officer for viral threats, told reporters in Geneva.
“Given the scale, we are thinking that it has started probably a couple of months ago.”
Six hundred suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths have been recorded so far, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva. Fifty-one cases have been confirmed by laboratory testing in DRC, and two cases have also been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda.
Dr Tedros said a WHO Emergency Committee had met on Tuesday and confirmed the outbreak was a public health emergency of international concern but not a pandemic emergency.
He had declared the emergency at the weekend, the first time a WHO chief had taken that step without first consulting experts, due to the urgency of the situation.
“The WHO assess the risk of the epidemic as high at the national and regional levels and low at the global level,” Dr Tedros said.
No treatment for Bundibugyo strain
The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola that caused the outbreak has an average fatality rate of around 40 per cent, according to WHO. Unlike with the more common Zaire strain, there are no approved virus-specific therapeutics or vaccines, and testing capacity is limited.
WHO experts have said that two possible vaccines are under consideration for use in the outbreak but could take three to nine months to be developed.
A 2018 to 2020 outbreak of the Zaire strain in eastern DRC was the second-deadliest on record, killing nearly 2,300 people.
“Our absolute priority now is to identify all the existing chains of transmission … that will then enable us to really define the scale of the outbreak and be able to provide care,” said Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO emergencies chief.
Experts suspect super-spreader event
WHO experts said the first suspected Ebola death was reported on 20 April. They believe that the first death was followed by a super-spreading event either at a funeral or a healthcare facility.
It was reported on Monday that confirmation of an outbreak was slowed by missteps by medical personnel, including an initial failure to escalate samples for further testing after they came back negative for the Zaire strain.
Among the confirmed Ebola cases are an American doctor who was working in Congo and has been transferred to Germany.
Another US doctor who came into contact with a patient infected with Ebola is being transferred from Uganda to a hospital in Prague, Czech officials said on Wednesday.
Countries pledge aid
The US government said it had mobilised an initial $13 million to respond to the outbreak and would help open 50 clinics to treat Ebola cases.
Experts have suggested the delays in detecting the outbreak may also show gaps in preparedness following cutbacks by the U.S. and other major donors to global health funding.
Tedros said that it was too early to say whether funding cuts in Congo or to the WHO had contributed to any delays in detecting or responding to the outbreak.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that South Africa had pledged $2.5 million to support the Ebola response.
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