WHO: Ebola epidemic is spreading rapidly in the DRC

Thierno Balde, who heads the World Health Organization (WHO) team managing the response against the Bundibugyo virus, attended the weekly press conference of the UN Geneva Office online from the DRC and made evaluations about the fastest growing Ebola epidemic in recent history.

"In 6 states of the KDC, the number of cases exceeded 5 thousand and the number of deaths exceeded 2 thousand 2 days ago." Balde said that the geographical spread of the epidemic is due to the uncontrolled movement of people, especially patients, between the already affected areas and neighboring regions.

Pointing out that the DRC Ministry of Health and its partners have limited operational capacity to respond to all regions affected by the epidemic, Balde said, "Despite these difficulties and under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, we are increasing the intervention to work at the same speed and at the same scale as the level of contamination. We are decentralizing the intervention and bringing it closer to the communities, so we respond to this crisis together." he said.

Balde pointed out that they increased their surveillance capacity and emphasized that, with the support of WHO, they aim to appoint 100 more epidemiologists and mobilize more than a thousand community health workers, which will provide additional power to those currently working in the response.

Stating that they plan to at least double the safe and respectful burial capacity in all health regions affected by the epidemic by working with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (IFRC), Balde said, "We are rapidly increasing our bed capacity together with our partners. We have increased the number of beds available, which were a few at the beginning of the intervention, to over 1300 today, and hundreds more beds are under construction. We plan to increase the capacity to 3 thousand beds in the following months and train three health and care workers who need to support the patients." he said.

Balde added that despite all these efforts, they are not yet able to work at the required speed and they continue to face difficulties in terms of access and social acceptance.

Ebola caused thousands of deaths in Africa

The Ebola virus, which causes a type of hemorrhagic fever, first appeared in 1976 with simultaneous outbreaks in the town of Nzara in Sudan and the village of Yambuku in the DRC.

The virus was named after the outbreak in the DRC because it started in the village near the Ebola River.

The Ebola virus spread in West Africa in December 2013. In the epidemic seen in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2014 and 2017, 30 thousand people were infected with the virus and more than 11 thousand of the patients died.

An epidemic was declared in the country on May 15, following 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths announced in Ituri province in the east of the DRC.

According to health officials, there is no approved treatment or vaccine for the "Bundibugyo" Ebola variant that broke out in May.