Congo Ebola outbreak ‘global emergency’ as infections pass 5,000: WHO

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains a global health emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned as it announced that the number of cases in the country has passed 5,000.

Following an emergency meeting on Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the international community to assist in efforts to contain the outbreak, which has killed more than 2,320 people.

“We must be frank: the epidemic is far from being under control,” Tedros told the emergency meeting. “It had a big head start, and we are still playing catch-up.”

The outbreak is the seventeenth in the DRC and is now the deadliest, exceeding the number of people killed during the outbreak from 2018 to 2020.

The emergency has caused more concern than usual for several reasons, including the fact that there is currently no approved vaccine or treatment for this strain of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo.

Response efforts have been further complicated by conflict in the mineral-rich DRC, misinformation, distrust of health workers and cultural traditions, among other factors.

Tedros warned on Tuesday that the outbreak was spreading at an “unprecedented speed,” and that the locations of many of the deaths show that there are chains of transmission yet to be identified.

The epidemic will continue until every chain was found and broken, he warned.