THE World Health Organisation has declared a public health emergency of international concern after an Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighbouring Uganda, alarming health experts who warned of delayed detection, said Reuters on Monday.
A previous outbreak in mining districts of North Kivu and Ituri from 2018 to 2020 killed nearly 2,300 people, the newswire said.
In the latest outbreak, two cases were confirmed in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, while eight cases have been laboratory-confirmed and 246 suspected cases reported in Ituri.
The outbreak is suspected to have killed around 80 people in recent weeks. A further case was confirmed in Goma, capital of North Kivu province, according to M23 rebels who control the city.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, which unlike the more common Zaire strain has no approved virus-specific therapeutics or vaccine, said Reuters.
Medical teams and supplies are being rushed to the affected areas. DRC Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba arrived in Ituri’s capital Bunia on Sunday with tents to establish treatment centres. WHO said it had exhausted its protective equipment stocks in Kinshasa and was preparing a cargo plane to collect additional supplies from Kenya. The International Rescue Committee and Médecins Sans Frontières said they had deployed response teams.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said WHO was first alerted to suspected cases on 5 May and dispatched a team to Ituri, but initial field samples tested negative. Subsequent tests in Kinshasa confirmed positive cases on 14 May.
IRC’s senior health coordinator in DRC, Lievin Bangali, said declining donor funding had weakened disease surveillance, allowing Ebola to spread further before detection.
