DR Congo’s Ebola outbreak surpasses 9,000 confirmed cases, with more than 4,300 deaths.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to worsen, with confirmed cases exceeding 9,000 and deaths surpassing 4,300.
Health authorities are struggling to contain the epidemic, which has spread across seven provinces, as response teams battle to curb transmission in multiple hotspots.
A major concern for health workers is the high number of deaths occurring in communities before patients can reach treatment centres, highlighting gaps in case detection and access to healthcare.
Dr Catherine Swallwood, the World Health Organization’s incident manager in DR Congo, said community deaths accounted for a significant proportion of cases.
“Over the past few weeks, about one-third of all new cases have still been community deaths. So that means we are not detecting cases while the patients are still alive,” she said.
With many infections going undetected in remote and hard-to-reach communities, the WHO is shifting its focus towards the areas most affected by the outbreak.
“It’s very difficult to be everywhere all the time. The strategy now is to really reach out to the communities that are hardest hit and bring our response to them,” Swallwood said.
She added that health teams needed to establish services directly in affected communities, where people continue to fall ill and die.
The outbreak involves the rare Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, which has an overall case fatality rate of 48.3 per cent. No vaccine or treatment has yet been specifically approved for this strain, although clinical trials are underway.
