UN warns DR Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak still ‘massive’ – and will take months to fight

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The world’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak is showing signs of slowing in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but United Nations health officials have warned it is too early to say the epidemic has passed its peak.

Julien Harneis, the UN’s special Ebola coordinator, said there had been “areas of progress” but described the epidemic as still “deadly and massive”.

“It’s such a vast epidemic that it’s difficult to talk about one epidemic, but rather many different locations,” he said.

It comes after DRC’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, suggesting earlier this week that the outbreak is now past its peak. The number of new cases reported each day has fallen from about 120 at the height of the outbreak in mid-August to around 80. Ten of the 62 affected health zones have recorded no new cases for more than 22 days.

However, the virus has continued to spread into new areas with cases now reported in seven provinces. Infections are rising rapidly in North Kivu, an area blighted by conflict, with 555 of the 1,269 confirmed cases it has recorded since the outbreak began reported in the past 21 days.

“It’s too early to confidently say we have passed a peak,” Olivier Le Polain, head of epidemiology and analytics for response at the health emergencies programme at the World Health Organisation (WHO), said.

“It will take many, many months to get this outbreak under control fully, and it will require significant support,” he added.

Many experts are increasingly concerned about North Kivu, where cases continue to rise, particularly in the densely populated city of Butembo. Health specialists deployed to the DRC have described the situation there as “alarming”, citing insecurity, high population density and population movement.

The outbreak has killed at least 3,510 people and infected 7,258, making it the DRC’s deadliest Ebola epidemic and the second anywhere on record after the 2014-16 outbreak in West Africa, during which 11,000 people died.

Sud-Ubangi in north-western Congo became the seventh province to report Ebola cases last week, after the virus was carried there by a 23-year-old man who had travelled extensively through the country and neighbouring states.

Efforts to contain an outbreak, which was declared on 15 May but is thought to have started months earlier, have been hampered by funding shortages following heavy cuts to international aid over the last 18 months.

The outbreaks is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain and there is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for Bundibugyo virus, although clinical trials are under way.

One attempt to stop the spread has seen health officials turn to anonymised mobile-phone data to try to predict where the virus could travel next.

The data is being used to track population movements and identify areas where the virus could spread next, reflecting the difficulty of containing an outbreak that has been driven in part by extensive movement between communities.

This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project