DR Congo Ebola outbreak on track to surpass deadliest in history, says WHO

“At its current pace, it’s on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

The outbreak in eastern Congo, considered the fastest-growing in history, has killed more than 2,000 people out of more than 4,300 cases.

The current outbreak was declared on May 15, but health authorities now say sequencing showed it began months earlier, in February.

It is unlike most previous Ebola outbreaks because the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments.

Experts say the outbreak is moving faster than efforts to track and manage it in a remote part of eastern Congo facing ongoing conflict, near the borders with South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda.

Most of the new cases and deaths were still being reported in communities outside the reach of health workers in a region with poor infrastructure and ill-equipped health centres.

Some health workers have gone on strike over lack of pay. Misinformation about the virus continues to circulate in communities where some are wary of outsiders, keeping some people from clinics.

“The outbreak had a big head start, still way ahead of us, and we’re playing catch-up,” Dr Tedros said.

Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, WHO’s director for health emergency alert and response operations, said the agency expected the peak of the outbreak to be reached in six months.

“But… that’s the moderate scenario,” Dr Mahamud said.

“There is a one-case scenario where this outbreak may last nine months to 12 months.”

This Ebola outbreak has killed more people at a faster rate than any other, including the 2014-2016 outbreak that had at least 28,000 cases. That one took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted from bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen and from contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.

Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri, the most affected of the five provinces where cases have been reported.

Two vaccines developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus are now being tested in people for the first time, Dr Tedros said on Wednesday.

WHO also plans to test whether an existing Ebola vaccine could protect people against the virus after studies in animals showed promising results.

The origins of the outbreak are becoming increasingly clear.

A study published in Nature Medicine on Monday added evidence that the outbreak began when the virus jumped from an infected animal to a person, rather than stemming from earlier outbreaks.

Researchers found the virus is genetically different from versions seen in Bundibugyo Ebola outbreaks in 2007 and 2012.