BUNIA, Congo (AP) — The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the risk of spread of the Ebola virus in Congo and Uganda is high at national and regional levels, but low at the global level.
The risk assessment came as the leader of the WHO team in Congo said the outbreak, which has led to over 130 suspected deaths, could last at least another two months as aid efforts intensified to stem the spread.
WHO has declared the Ebola outbreak a public
health emergency of international concern, requiring a coordinated response. On Tuesday, it expressed concern over the “scale and speed” of the outbreak.
Worried residents in eastern Congo have reported rising prices for face masks and disinfectants following the outbreak of the rare type of Ebola, known as the Bundibugyo virus. It spread undetected for weeks following the first known death, while authorities tested for another, more common Ebola virus, which came up negative, health experts and aid workers said. There are no approved medicines or vaccines for the Bundibugyo virus.
So far, 51 cases have been confirmed in Congo's northern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, as well as two in Uganda, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday. Beyond that, there are 139 suspected deaths and almost 600 suspected cases, he said.
“We know that the scale of the epidemic is much larger,” he said. “We expect those numbers to keep increasing.”
Congo was expecting shipments from the United States and Britain of an experimental vaccine for different types of Ebola, developed by researchers at Oxford, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a virologist at the National Institute of Biomedical Research, told reporters on Tuesday.
“We will administer the vaccine and see who develops the disease,” he said.
In Bunia, the site of the first known death, schools and churches remained open on Wednesday, and some residents were wearing masks in the street. Residents said that masks have become harder to find and that some disinfectants previously sold for 2,500 Congolese francs (about $1) now cost up to 10,000 francs ($4.4).
“It’s truly sad and painful because we’ve already been through a security crisis, and now Ebola is here too,” said Justin Ndasi, a resident of Bunia. “We have to protect ourselves to avoid this epidemic.”
Trish Newport, emergency program manager at aid group Doctors Without Borders, posted on social media that her team in Bunia identified suspected cases over the weekend at the Salama hospital, which has no isolation ward. They unsuccessfully tried to place them at another health facility in Bunia.
“The team called around to other health facilities to see if they had isolations,” she said. “Every health facility they called said, ‘We’re full of suspect cases. We don’t have any space.’ This gives you a vision of how crazy it is right now.”
In Mongbwalu, the town at the epicenter of the current outbreak, the border with Uganda remains open, and gold mining activities continue, Chérubin Kuku Ndilawa, a local civil society leader, told The Associated Press.
“There’s no panic. People continue with their normal lives, but they’re also starting to spread the word,” said Ndilawa, adding that controlling the outbreak has been hindered by a lack of public handwashing stations.
Dr. Didier Pay, a former director of the Mongbwalu General Hospital, said his clinic was treating around 30 Ebola patients and that a student from the local medical technology institute died on Wednesday morning.
"The deployment is already underway for the construction of a treatment center,” he told the AP.
Health experts said the delayed detection of the virus and large population movements in affected areas, which already suffer a preexisting humanitarian crisis, complicated the response. Parts of eastern Congo are controlled by armed rebels, hampering the delivery of aid.
Congo said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, but the confirmation did not come for weeks. The body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.
“That caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,” said Congo’s Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba.
Dr. Anne Ancia, the head of the WHO team in Congo, said authorities still haven’t identified “patient zero.” There was a long road ahead, she said, adding that cuts in funding had “a marked detrimental effect on humanitarian actors.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that the Trump administration would “lean into” Ebola response efforts with a priority on funding 50 emergency clinics in affected areas. The U.S. has so far contributed $13 million to the effort and Rubio said more would be coming.
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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Wilson McMakin in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.
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