<\/p>\n
Deaths from Ebola doubled in just over two weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where many infected people aren\u2019t reaching care, allowing the virus to spread through communities in what the World Health Organiation describes as the fastest-growing outbreak it has managed.<\/p>\n
Congo has reported 754 confirmed deaths and 2,011 cases, the National Institute of Public Health said Tuesday. The death toll has climbed from 377 on June 28, while the outbreak has spread into two new provinces beyond its original epicenter in Ituri.<\/p>\n
The epidemic has already exceeded half the number of cases recorded during Congo\u2019s previous Ebola outbreak, which began in 2018 and lasted almost two years, medical aid group M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The true scale of the epidemic could be \u201cat least two to four times\u201d larger than the official case count because 80% of new infections are occurring outside health officials\u2019 contact lists, Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of the WHO\u2019s health emergencies program, told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to imagine that this is a fire,\u201d Ihekweazu said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the fastest growth in a single month since the outbreak started and of all the Ebola outbreaks that we have managed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The crude case-fatality rate has increased to 37% from 32% a week earlier, a pattern the WHO says reflects persistent delays in diagnosis, isolation and access to care rather than increased disease severity. The agency\u2019s analysis of 430 confirmed deaths found that some 92% occurred before patients reached treatment facilities.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe must find the cases earlier, bring them into care as soon as possible so that we reduce transmission in the community,\u201d Ihekweazu said. \u201cThe more cases stay in the community, the more they transmit, the more we stay behind the curve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evading treatment<\/p>\n
Keeping patients in care remains another obstacle. More than 240 people have fled Ebola treatment or isolation facilities during the outbreak, including 100 in the past month, highlighting the difficulties health authorities face persuading patients to remain under care.<\/p>\n
The response is under growing strain. Isolation facilities in North Kivu province are operating at more than 120% occupancy, while safe-burial activities in Rwampara, where more than 400 confirmed cases have been reported, have been disrupted because burial teams haven\u2019t been paid, health authorities said.<\/p>\n
The shortage of treatment capacity is also discouraging some patients from seeking care. \u201cPeople regularly tell us they prefer to wait at home and come only when a bed becomes available,\u201d said Sylvie Kaczmarczyk, emergency coordinator with M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res in Bunia, the provincial capital at the center of the outbreak.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s 90-bed Elikiya Ebola Treatment Centre \u201cis almost always operating at full capacity,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cAs a result, we continue to receive patients who arrive late and are already critically ill.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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The International Rescue Committee warned the outbreak is worsening on two fronts, with transmission accelerating in existing hotspots while spreading into new areas that increase the risk of cross-border transmission into South Sudan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk to South Sudan is particularly alarming,\u201d said Bob Kitchen, vice president of emergencies at the IRC, in a statement. \u201cIf Ebola crosses the border, it could spread silently before being detected, making the response far more complex and putting countless lives at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The outbreak has also reached Kisangani, a city of about 1.5 million people on the Congo River that links eastern Congo with Kinshasa.<\/p>\n
Difficulty breathing\u00a0<\/p>\n
Doctors are also investigating whether Bundibugyo \u2014 the Ebola strain driving the current outbreak \u2014 differs clinically from other members of the virus family that includes Marburg. Difficulty breathing was reported in about a third of patients with confirmed Bundibugyo infection in a report in the New England Journal of Medicine last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cBundibugyo seems to have a respiratory component that we don\u2019t usually see in the other filovirus diseases,\u201d said Armand Sprecher, an emergency physician and epidemiologist with M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, after arriving in Bunia. Patients are arriving \u201cwith some difficulty breathing\u201d and needing more oxygen than clinicians are accustomed to providing, he said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Besides a possible direct effect of the virus on the lungs, breathing problems could reflect severe infection combined with conditions common in eastern Congo, including malaria, anemia and malnutrition, which reduce the body\u2019s ability to carry oxygen and make even modest lung injury more dangerous, said Craig Spencer, an emergency-medicine physician who treated Ebola patients during the 2014-16 West African epidemic.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n
#Ebola #deaths #double #weeks #warns #virus #outrunning #response<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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