Africa’s top public health body has confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Ituri province, the 17th since the disease first emerged in the country in 1976.
A total of 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths have already been recorded in the new outbreak, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Friday.
The suspected Ebola cases have mainly been recorded in Ituri’s Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones. Suspected cases have also been reported in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province.
So far, only four of the deaths reported are laboratory-confirmed cases, but the new outbreak was confirmed after many suspected cases.
Ituri is in a remote eastern part of Congo with poor road networks, and is more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa.
One major concern, the Africa CDC said, is the proximity of affected areas to Uganda and South Sudan. Bunia, Ituri’s main city, is near the border with Uganda.
The agency said there’s also risk of further spread due to intense population movement and attacks by armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in parts of Ituri province in the past year.
There are also gaps in contact tracing, the Africa CDC said, as local authorities race to find those who might have been exposed to the virus.
Africa CDC said results so far suggest a non-Zaire Ebola virus. It said sequencing is ongoing to further characterize the strain, with results expected within the next 24 hours.
The Ebola Zaire strain was prominent in Congo’s past outbreaks, including the 2018 to 2020 outbreak in the eastern region that killed more than 1,000 people.
The World Health Organization said during Congo’s Ebola outbreak last year that the country has a stockpile of treatments and some 2,000 doses of vaccine. However, the vaccine is directed at Ebola Zaire, it said.
Dr. Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health who has been involved in past Ebola outbreak responses in Congo, said treatments for viral infections like Ebola are often directed at symptoms and that efforts regarding vaccines would become clearer when the strain in the new outbreak is confirmed.
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The Africa CDC has convened an urgent high-level coordination meeting on Friday with health authorities from Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan, together with key partners, including U.N. agencies and other countries.
The meeting, the agency said, will focus on immediate response priorities, cross-border coordination, surveillance, safe and dignified burials, and resource mobilization, among other areas.
Congo and health workers on the ground have a high level of experience from past outbreaks, in addition to existing infrastructure such as laboratories, said Nsakala. “Now, the expertise and equipment need to be delivered quickly,” he added.
Congo is Africa’s second-largest country by land area and often faces logistical challenges in responding to disease outbreaks due to bad roads and long distances.
During last year’s outbreak, which lasted three months, the WHO initially faced significant challenges in delivering vaccines, which took a week after the outbreak was confirmed.
Funding has also been problematic. During last year’s outbreak, health officials were concerned about the impact of recent U.S. funding cuts.
The U.S. had supported the response to Congo’s past Ebola outbreaks, including in 2021 when the U.S. Agency for International Development provided up to $11.5 million to support efforts across Africa.
The Ebola virus is highly contagious and can be transmitted to people from wild animals.
It then spreads in the human population through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen, and with surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing contaminated with these fluids.
The disease it causes is a rare but severe — and often fatal — illness in people.
Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, and at times internal and external bleeding.
The virus was first discovered in 1976, near the Ebola River in what is now Congo. The first outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests.
