In Brief
- World Health Organisation officials are warning the current Ebola outgreak could swell to be largest on record.
- 82 people have died in the current outbreak.
The Ebola outbreak sweeping through central Africa has reached alarming levels, with nearly 500 cases confirmed, according to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report. Concerns are rising as the epidemic continues to expand.
The WHO’s latest update indicates that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak was announced three weeks ago, there are 452 confirmed cases, with 82 resulting in death.
Across the border in Uganda, the situation includes 19 confirmed cases and two fatalities.
In total, the outbreak has reached 471 cases and claimed 84 lives, reflecting an increase of 100 cases and 20 deaths compared to the previous day’s figures, as reported by the governments of the DRC and Uganda.
This surge has fueled fears that the outbreak, already classified by the WHO as an international public health emergency, could potentially escalate into the largest ever recorded.
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A top official at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that models indicated that without strong public health interventions, the current outbreak risked rivalling the scale of the 2014 West Africa epidemic, which saw over 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths.
“That scale is possible,” said Jason Asher, director of CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, during a press briefing.
Ebola, which is spread through close contact and bodily fluids, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.
The current outbreak was declared on May 15 in northeastern DR Congo, but the virus is believed to have spread under the radar for some time beforehand.
There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the outbreak.
The WHO and the African CDC on Friday launched a $518-million plan to battle the outbreak over the next six months, focusing among other things on boosting surveillance, laboratory testing and infection prevention.
“The outbreak is moving fast, and we are still playing catch-up,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
“We need to stop the outbreak where it is, support countries that are responding today, and ensure that neighbouring countries are ready to detect and act quickly if cases appear,” he said.
“This is a serious outbreak and its one we know how to stop but we need to move fast and together.”
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