WHO Warns Ebola Vaccine Response Must Match Congo Spread
The World Health Organization says the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo may be spreading faster than originally thought, even as an ebola vaccine response is being prepared alongside emergency funding. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic" after declaring the outbreak an international emergency late on Saturday night.
Ituri Province Cases
Officials say the virus is believed to have killed 136 people in DR Congo, with more than 514 cases now suspected. WHO official Dr Anne Ancia said the more the UN agency investigated, the clearer it became that cases had spread to other areas, and modelling by the London-based MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis suggested there had been substantial under-detection.
The same modelling could not rule out more than 1,000 cases already. That estimate sits well above the current count and points to a response that has to work in places where people are still trying to judge how much danger they are in. In Ituri province, locals described fear rather than certainty: Bigboy said people were "really scared" and told the, "Ebola has tortured us."
Tedros and Tshisekedi
The WHO has already released almost $4m to combat the outbreak. DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi held a crisis meeting on Monday evening, then called for "calm" and urged Congolese citizens to remain vigilant on Tuesday.
The outbreak is unfolding in a region that has suffered years of conflict, where hospitals and clinics have been damaged or destroyed, millions of people live in unsanitary conditions, and more than 11,000 refugees who fled fighting in South Sudan are also nearby. Big population movements among people seeking work in local gold mines add another layer of movement through the same area, making it harder for health teams to find every case early.
Red Cross Warning
The Red Cross warned that Ebola could escalate quickly if cases are not identified early, communities lack information and health systems are overwhelmed. One person has died in neighbouring Uganda, a sign that the outbreak is already crossing borders while the main response in DR Congo is still trying to catch up with where the virus has moved.
That leaves the next pressure point on early detection and wider containment in eastern DR Congo, where WHO investigators are still trying to determine how far the virus has gone and whether the emergency declaration is enough to pull the response ahead of the spread.
