Health officials are raising the alarm over the rapid spread of Ebola in an outbreak that has killed more than 130 people and infected nearly 600, including an American.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was ‘deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic,’ which involves a rare strain of Ebola that has a mortality rate of up to 50 percent.
Experts and aid workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo said the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks after the first known deaths because officials were testing for the more common strain of Ebola and the results were repeatedly negative.
The latest outbreak involves the Ebola strain Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD), which has no approved vaccine or treatment.
The CDC elevated a travel advisory to the DRC to level 3, warning Americans to ‘reconsider nonessential travel.’
The agency also announced it was increasing screening and monitoring for people arriving from areas affected by Ebola outbreaks and restricting entry for non-US passport holders if they have been in Uganda, the DRC or South Sudan in the past 21 days.
The outbreak has left at least 136 people dead with nearly 600 cases now suspected across the DRC and Uganda, and Ghebreyesus said officials ‘expect those numbers to keep increasing.’
He added that the risk of spread of the outbreak in those countries is high at the national and regional level, but spread risk is low at the global level.
World Health Organization staff members load medical supplies, including PPE, testing kits and body bags, onto a plane destined for Bunia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help combat the Ebola outbreak
Guards stand outside the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute (INRB), where samples from suspected Ebola cases are being tested in the Democratic Republic of Congo
However, one man in the DRC’s Ituri province told the BBC infected people were dying ‘very fast’ and that ‘Ebola has tortured us.’
CDC officials said the risk to the general US public remains low but urged travelers to the area to avoid contact with any sick individuals.
The CDC also said travelers should watch for symptoms of Ebola for 21 days after leaving the DRC.
An American doctor working in the DRC has tested positive for the virus and six other American workers are feared to have been exposed. They all are being evacuated to Germany and the Czech Republic for care.
And concerns in the US are rising because the DRC’s men’s soccer team is scheduled to travel to the US and play in the World Cup in Houston, Texas, against Portugal on June 17.
CDC officials did not provide specifics surrounding screening and procedures ahead of the World Cup, but said that the agency is ‘actively working with FIFA to ensure safe traveling and passage’ and to ensure the ‘American public remains safe throughout’ the competition.
The CDC is also sending personal protective equipment and deploying additional resources to the DRC and Uganda to provide ‘direct technical assistance for aggressive disease tracking and contact tracing.’
The WHO said that the first known suspected case, a health worker in the DRC, developed symptoms on April 24, but ‘patient zero’ has not been identified, the head of the WHO team in the DRC Dr Anne Ancia told AP.
Health workers are seen at an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Congo
This is the 17th Ebola outbreak in the DRC, where the virus is endemic, since it was discovered in 1976 but only the third caused by the Bundibugyo strain.
The other two BVD outbreaks were in 2007 and 2012.
The most recent Ebola outbreaks in the DRC were in 2018 and 2020 and they killed more than 1,000 people each. The largest Ebola outbreak occurred in 2014 to 2016 in West Africa when more than 28,600 cases were reported.
The WHO has said the current outbreak does not meet the criteria of a pandemic, but it is considered a ‘public health emergency of international concern.’
Countries sharing borders with DRC, such as Uganda and Rwanda, are at an increased risk of further spread.
Ebola spreads through contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person, as well as contact with contaminated objects or infected animals such as bats or primates.
Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain and weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.
The mortality rate for the Bundibugyo virus ranges from 25 to 50 percent.
The Zaire strain, which is the most common form of Ebola, can be treated with the drugs Inmazeb and Ebanga and the Ervebo vaccine, which is administered only during outbreaks.
Ancia said officials were considering using the Ervebo vaccine but anything approved would take two months to become available, adding that she doesn’t ‘see that in two months we will be done with this outbreak.’