The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has surpassed 5,000 confirmed cases, making it the second-largest Ebola epidemic ever recorded and the country's deadliest. The Congolese Health Ministry counted 5,021 cases and 2,378 deaths as of Sunday, according to the Associated Press, marking a major new threshold in an emergency that continues to expand across eastern Congo.
The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, for which no vaccine or specific treatment has received approval. The first detected patient developed symptoms in late April in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, and Congo declared the outbreak on May 15 after laboratory testing identified the virus. Officials believe transmission may have begun months before the declaration.
The World Health Organization reported on August 14 that cases had reached 54 health zones in six provinces, with Ituri then accounting for 85 percent of confirmed infections. WHO assessed the risk within Congo as very high and the risk for neighboring countries as high, while keeping the broader global risk low. Uganda has stopped local transmission, and a doctor treated in France after returning from Congo recovered without known secondary cases.
Bundibugyo disease spreads through direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected people or animals and through contaminated objects; it is not generally airborne. Symptoms can appear two to 21 days after exposure and often begin with fever, fatigue, headache, muscle pain and sore throat before vomiting, diarrhea, organ damage or bleeding. People do not transmit the virus before symptoms begin, WHO says.
Response teams face insecurity, population displacement, difficult roads, misinformation and gaps in community trust. WHO said 84.2 percent of identified contacts were followed on August 12, below the level needed to reliably interrupt every chain of transmission, while 155 health workers had been infected by August 9. Authorities are expanding treatment centers, laboratory testing, surveillance, safe burials and infection controls, and are working with community leaders to improve early reporting.
Patients currently depend mainly on fluids, symptom management and other supportive care. WHO is sponsoring the PARTNERS treatment trial, which had enrolled more than 100 confirmed patients at three facilities in Ituri, and it has recommended testing the licensed Zaire Ebola vaccine in a randomized trial against Bundibugyo disease. Rapid diagnosis, isolation, contact tracing and safe care remain the principal tools for slowing the outbreak, and WHO continues to advise against unnecessary travel or trade restrictions.
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