Africa CDC Warns Congo Ebola Outbreak Could Be Worst in History
Jean Kaseya, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control (Africa CDC) warned on Tuesday that the current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could become the worst ever recorded since so many of the people who came into contact with Ebola victims have yet to be traced and tested.
“If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon it will be worse than what we had in West Africa and eastern DRC,” said Kaseya. The West Africa outbreak in 2014 killed over 11,000 people, while the 2018 outbreak in the Congo claimed almost 2,300 victims.
According to the latest update from the DRC health ministry, the current outbreak of the Ebola Bundibugyo strain includes 782 cases and 181 fatalities, which would not seem to be in a league with the horrifying death tolls from 2014 or 2018. However, one of the biggest problems with the current outbreak is that cases have been very difficult to diagnose and track due to political instability in the outbreak region and an often-uncooperative population.
Health officials fear the true number of cases and deaths could be much higher than the figures confirmed so far and, while the outbreak was officially declared one month ago, it began weeks or months before that.
On the matter of the uncooperative population in the eastern Congo, a gang of unknown assailants wielding bladed weapons reportedly removed a woman and her six-year-old daughter from a treatment center on Tuesday. It was the latest instance of people in the outbreak region using force to retrieve living or dead Ebola patients from isolation areas because they mistrust medical personnel, insist on performing their own funerals for the dead, or believe Ebola is caused by witchcraft. (Read more from “Africa CDC Warns Congo Ebola Outbreak Could Be Worst in History” HERE)
