Congo's Ebola outbreak has most cases in first month of any African outbreak, WHO says

NAIROBI, June 23 – Congo’s Ebola outbreak has the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of any Ebola outbreak in Africa, a senior World Health Organization official told a briefing on Tuesday.

The Bundibugyo outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has infected over 1,000 people and killed 267 was detected late and experts say the virus had already been circulating for months before it was officially declared on May 15.

“The response needs to expand to keep pace with the expanding outbreak – this is beginning to happen,” WHO’s Abdirahman Mahamud told a press briefing in Geneva after returning from the outbreak’s epicentre Bunia last week.

The two biggest Ebola outbreaks before this one were in West Africa in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia which killed 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016, and a less fatal outbreak in Congo in 2018.

Ebola cases have now been reported in at least three of eastern Congo’s crowded displacement camps, Reuters has reported. The International Organization for Migration’s Abdoulaye Wone said at the same briefing that at least 25 cases had been confirmed at the camps, including 14 deaths.

There have been over 20 outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). REUTERS