Congo’s Ebola outbreak on track to surpass deadliest in history, WHO chief says

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the current Ebola outbreak in the Congo is on course to surpass the deadliest in history, which broke out more than ten years ago, claimed over 11,000 lives, and jolted efforts to develop a vaccine.

The outbreak in eastern Congo, considered the fastest-growing one yet, has killed over 2,000 people out of more than 4,300 cases. The 2014-2016 outbreak had at least 28,000 cases and took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

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

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

Health experts say this is unlike recent Ebola outbreaks because the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments, though efforts to address that are underway.

This outbreak ‘had a big head start’, WHO says

According to health and disease control authorities, this outbreak is spreading more quickly than attempts to monitor and control, especially in a remote area of the eastern Congo that is still experiencing conflict, close to the borders with South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda.

Most new cases and deaths are being reported in communities outside the reach of health workers in a region of poor infrastructure and ill-equipped health centres and where some workers have gone on strike over lack of pay.

Misinformation about the virus circulates 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,” Tedros said.

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

“But ... that’s the moderate scenario,” Mahamud said. “There is a one-case scenario where this outbreak may last nine months to 12 months.”

Two vaccines for this type are currently being tested

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 in Congo where cases have been reported.

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

Reporting from euronews contributed to this story.