The death toll from the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exceeded 200, with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) warning that the outbreak remains far from under control.
The DRC health ministry on Thursday reported that the country had recorded 875 confirmed Ebola cases, including 202 deaths, with a case fatality rate of 23.1 percent. A total of 67 recoveries had been reported, while 379 patients were in isolation or hospitalized.
Forty new confirmed cases, including four deaths, were reported in Ituri and North Kivu provinces. Two more health zones, Fataki in Ituri and Musienene in North Kivu, were newly affected, bringing the total number of affected health zones to 33 across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu.
Ituri remains the epicenter of the outbreak, accounting for 799 confirmed cases, or 91.3 percent of the total, and 158 deaths. North Kivu has reported 73 confirmed cases and 43 deaths, while South Kivu has recorded three confirmed cases and one death.
The Africa CDC said at an online press briefing on Thursday that only about 12 percent of expected contacts are currently under active follow-up.
The agency estimated that around 35,000 contacts would be expected based on the current caseload, but only about 6,500 had been listed and over 4,100 were under active follow-up.
Wessam Mankoula, an Africa CDC official, said the response remained far below what was needed to break transmission chains. He said responders should be actively following 90 to 95 percent of expected contacts.
“For this Bundibugyo virus, we don’t have vaccine, we don’t have treatment,” Mankoula said. “Still far from controlling the situation of this outbreak.”
DRC authorities warned that a rapid geographic expansion of the outbreak remains possible if public health measures are not implemented quickly.
The DRC health ministry named several major challenges, including reluctance to undergo post-mortem swabbing, insufficient capacity in Ebola treatment centers, weak contact tracing, shortages of infection prevention and control materials in North Kivu, weak alert reporting in South Kivu, and a funding gap of 21.5 million U.S. dollars.
