A new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has infected 100 people in a western province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a rapid spread that has worried health officials about the chances of an uncontrolled epidemic.
The outbreak in Equateur Province began in early June, when a cluster of cases were discovered in the provincial capital of Mbandaka. The number of cases has doubled in the last five weeks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said 43 people had died.
Equateur Province is a remote area north and east of Kinshasa, connected to the capital by the Congo River. The outbreak has spread to 11 health zones, the WHO said, with cases spreading across about 180 miles of jungle, making affected villages difficult to reach.
The WHO has allocated about $ 2.3 million to the fight against Ebola, and the Congolese Ministry of Health has said it needs $ 40 million to control the outbreak. But the world is being consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, and international partners have not allocated the funds to stop Ebola.
“The virus is spreading over a wide and rugged terrain that requires costly interventions, and with Covid-19 drainage of resources and attention, it is difficult to scale up operations,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa.
This is the second major Ebola outbreak in Equatorial Province in the last two years. An earlier outbreak that began in May 2018 was contained in just three months, after 54 people became infected and 33 died.
The latest outbreak came just as Congo ended its worst Ebola epidemic ever recorded, in eastern North Kivu and Ituri provinces. That incident, unrelated to the current conflagration, lasted nearly two years and killed more than 2,200 people.
The current outbreak is regarding the position of Mbandaka as a major port on the Congo River. River traffic connects Equatorial Province with Kinshasa, population 12 million, and Brazzaville, capital of the neighboring Republic of Congo and home to about 2 million people.
If the virus reaches one of the cities, it could lead to an urban outbreak that would pose a greater challenge than even the West Africa outbreak in 2014-2015 that killed more than 11,300 people.
“Covid-19 is not the only emergency that needs robust support,” Moeti said in a statement. “As we know from our recent history, we are ignoring Ebola at our peril.”
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