Health workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are losing ground against an Ebola outbreak that's spreading faster than anyone can contain. The
World Health Organization now says this could become the worst Ebola outbreak the world has ever seen. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus didn't mince words on Wednesday. At the rate things are going, he said, this outbreak could soon overtake the infamous West African Ebola crisis of 2014 to 2016, the one that killed more than 11,000 people and eventually forced the world to fast track a vaccine. Here's where things stand right now: more than 2,000 people have died out of over 4,300 recorded cases in eastern DR Congo. That kill rate alone makes this the fastest spreading Ebola outbreak on record. What's strange is the timeline. Officials only declared the outbreak on May 15, but later genetic testing told a different story. The virus, it turns out, had been quietly circulating since February. Three months of spread before anyone even knew it was happening.
No Vaccine, No Easy Fix
Part of what makes this outbreak so dangerous is the strain behind it. It's Bundibugyo, a rarer form of Ebola that doesn't have an approved vaccine or treatment yet. So unlike past outbreaks where a vaccine helped slow things down, this one is being fought largely blind.Everything Working Against Containment
Geography isn't helping either. The affected region sits near DR Congo's borders with South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda, an area already strained by ongoing conflict. Health teams simply can't reach a lot of the communities where people are getting sick and dying.Then there's the infrastructure problem. Clinics are underfunded. Misinformation about the virus keeps spreading almost as fast as the disease itself. And to make matters worse, health workers have gone on strike over unpaid wages, pulling even more capacity out of an already stretched response.
How Long Could This Go On?
Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, who oversees WHO's emergency response operations, laid out two possible timelines. In a moderate scenario, he said, the outbreak could peak within six months. If things go badly, though, it might not peak until nine to 12 months from now.Measuring It Against History
The 2014 to 2016 West African outbreak still holds the grim title of deadliest Ebola outbreak ever, with more than 11,000 deaths out of roughly 28,000 cases. That disaster is also what pushed vaccine development into high gear globally.Whether Congo's outbreak overtakes that record now comes down to access. WHO officials say if health teams can't get into the hardest hit communities soon, this crisis could end up surpassing 2014 to 2016 as the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.
