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The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Saturday visited Bunia in eastern Congo, a town at the center of an outbreak of a rare strain of Ebola where the virus is spreading faster than the response despite better organized health facilities and new aid entrances.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed the importance of building community trust and ensuring safe burials to prevent the spread of the outbreak, and urged countries to reconsider travel bans and border closures as they “hinder transparency.”
“The Democratic Republic of Congo has faced Ebola 16 times and has ended each outbreak. This is the 17th. This story really gives me confidence,” Tedros said during a press conference with the country’s health minister.
The health organization said on Friday that the latest official figures showed 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths. Neighboring Uganda has confirmed nine cases and one death, the Ugandan Ministry of Health said on Friday.
There is no approved treatment or vaccination for the Bundibugyo virus, the current strain of Ebola.
The World Health Organization expects cases of the rare Ebola strain to increase and considers it a public health emergency of international concern, but not a pandemic emergency. Both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have reported outbreaks.
Medical aid donated by the European Union arrived in Bunia, in the country’s Ituri province, on Thursday. Further deliveries are expected in the coming days. The United States announced $80 million in additional aid on the same day, bringing its total commitment to over $112 million.
Relief efforts at Rwampara and General hospitals in Bunia appeared to be better organized, with additional staff, protective equipment and medical supplies – although patients continue to arrive around the clock, according to an Associated Press reporter.
The response has not kept pace with one of the fastest-spreading outbreaks of all time, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, warned on Saturday.
“Never before have there been so many cases of an Ebola outbreak so soon after it was announced,” said Dr. Alan Gonzalez, deputy director of operations for Médecins Sans Frontières, said in a statement. “Nobody knows the true extent and severity of this outbreak.”
Gonzalez called for an immediate expansion of testing, faster deployment of relief workers and permanent access to medical care.
The dangers faced by health workers have been exacerbated by residents’ anger over strict medical protocols for handling victims’ bodies, which conflict with local burial rites. Residents have launched at least three attacks on health centers.
“We are not here to tell people what to do, we are here to listen,” WHO’s Tedros said on Saturday. “Building trust takes time and starts with listening.
“I understand how painful it is to lose someone and how much it means to honor them appropriately, but certain practices, including touching the bodies of those who have died of Ebola, can further spread the virus,” he said.
Dr. Kent Brantly is an American doctor who became infected with Ebola while caring for patients in Liberia 12 years ago. He says the location of the current outbreak – on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda – makes it difficult to contain.
Attacks in Ituri by the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State and a coalition of ethnic militias have also hampered the response.
The disease has also been reported in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, south of Ituri, where the Rwandan-backed rebel group M23 controls many key towns, including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases.
Uganda and Rwanda have closed their borders, while the Trump administration last week banned the entry of non-US passport holders who had recently visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan.
“I would also ask countries that have imposed travel bans or border closures to reconsider,” Tedros said, saying such measures “discourage the transparency that saves lives.”
