More than 550 confirmed cases of Ebola in DR Congo

The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has risen to 544, in the wake of the US’s health protection agency warned the outbreak could become the largest on record.

- LIZ COOKMAN GLOBAL HEALTH CORRESPONDENT

The epicentre is in DRC’s Ituri province, where Africa’s top public health agency, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), have said there have been 515 confirmed cases out of Congo’s total of 544. At least 91 are confirmed dead, with a further 19 cases and 2 deaths in neighbouring Uganda, according to the two countries’ health ministries.

The outbreak was declared an international health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 17 May after cases were detected in both the DRC and Uganda.

Ten other nearby countries are considered at risk by the African Union’s primary public health agency, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that the outbreak could spread to be similar in scale to the worst in history.

Ebola killed 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. However, unlike that 2014 to 2016 outbreak, this crisis is caused by the Bundibugyo virus and unlike more common strains, there is no licensed vaccine to help contain it. First identified in Uganda in 2007, the Bundibugyo strain has caused relatively few outbreaks.

The CDC published a range of scenarios generated by computer models, saying cases could grow to 20,000 or more, depending on how quickly infected people are isolated to slow the spread.