WHO declares international emergency as Ebola outbreak kills more than 80 in DR Congo

GENEVA – An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has killed more than 80, as the authorities warned that there was no vaccine for the strain in a crisis that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international health emergency on May 17.

A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever have been reported, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said in an update on May 16.

The Geneva-based WHO said early on May 17 that the outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola constituted a “public health emergency of international concern”, the second-highest level of alert under international health regulations.

The global health body warned that the true scale of the number of cases and spread was not clear, but stopped short of declaring a pandemic emergency, the highest alert level introduced in 2024.

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was preparing a “large-scale response”, calling the rapid spread of the outbreak “extremely concerning”, in warnings echoed by the authorities.

“The Bundibugyo strain has no vaccine, no specific treatment,” DRC’s Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said. “This strain has a very high lethality rate, which can reach 50 per cent.”

The strain – first identified in 2007 – has also killed a Congolese national in neighbouring Uganda, officials said on May 16.

Vaccines are available only for the Zaire strain, which was identified in 1976 and has a higher fatality rate of 60 per cent to 90 per cent.

Health officials confirmed the latest outbreak on May 15 in Ituri province in the DRC’s north-east, bordering Uganda and South Sudan, according to Africa CDC.

“We’ve been seeing people die for the past two weeks,” said Mr Isaac Nyakulinda, a local civil society representative. “There is nowhere to isolate the sick. They are dying at home, and their bodies are being handled by their family members.”

According to Dr Kamba, patient zero was a nurse who reported to a health facility in Ituri’s provincial capital Bunia, on April 24, with symptoms suggesting Ebola.

Symptoms of the disease include fever, haemorrhaging and vomiting.

“The number of cases and deaths we are seeing in such a short timeframe, combined with the spread across several health zones and now across the border, is extremely concerning,” said Dr Trish Newport, emergency programme manager for MSF, which is mobilising medical and support staff to the area.

Large-scale transport of medical equipment is a challenge in the DRC, a country of more than 100 million people that is four times the size of France but has a poor communications infrastructure.

High risk of spread

It is the 17th Ebola outbreak to hit the DRC, and officials warned of a high risk of spread.

“There are significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread,” the WHO said.

But it added that the high positivity rate of initial samples, the confirmation of cases in two countries, and the increasing reports of suspected cases, “all point towards a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread”.

The previous outbreak of Ebola, which killed around 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years, despite advances in vaccines and treatment, occurred last August in the central region.

That episode killed at least 34 people before being declared eradicated in December.

Nearly 2,300 people died in the deadliest outbreak in the DRC between 2018 and 2020.

Ebola, believed to have originated in bats, can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.

Outbreaks over the past half-century have seen a mortality rate among those affected of between 25 per cent and 90 per cent, according to the WHO

The virus spreads from person to person through bodily fluids or exposure to an infected person’s blood, who becomes contagious only once they display symptoms. The incubation period can last up to 21 days. AFP