Global scramble to contain new Ebola outbreak as US looks to relocate ‘small number’ of citizens affected
Staff members at CBCA Virunga Hospital prepare rooms intended for possible suspected Ebola cases in Goma
(CNN) — An international effort is underway to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda that has infected hundreds of people and caused dozens of suspected deaths, as the United States looks to relocate a “small number” of its citizens affected.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern.” The latest outbreak does not yet meet the criteria of a “pandemic emergency,” but WHO warned the high positivity rate and increasing number of cases and deaths across health zones point toward “a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Sunday there have been 10 confirmed cases and 336 suspected cases including 88 deaths in the DRC. WHO said the outbreak is affecting the country’s remote northeastern Ituri province. In neighboring Uganda, two laboratory-confirmed cases, including one death, have so far been reported in the country’s capital Kampala, WHO reported.
The latest outbreak is being driven by the Bundibugyo strain, one of several viruses that can cause Ebola disease, WHO said. The organizaton has called the outbreak “extraordinary” as there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines specific to the Bundibugyo virus.
Ebola symptoms include fever, muscle pain, rash and sometimes bleeding. The virus is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, including the handling of contaminated materials or someone who has died from the disease.
The fatality rate involving the Bundibugyo strain is estimated to be between 25% and 40%, according to Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The CDC said Sunday it was supporting interagency partners with efforts to relocate “a small number of Americans who are directly affected” by the outbreak. It comes after several Americans in the DRC were believed to have been exposed to the virus, including some deemed high risk, health news outlet STAT reported Sunday.
CNN could not independently verify the reports and has reached out to the CDC and the US Department of State for comment.
Dr. Satish Pillai, the CDC’s Ebola Response Incident Manager declined on Sunday to say whether any Americans were among those who had been infected. At a press briefing, he said the CDC was “actively assessing the situation on the ground and we aren’t going to comment on individual disposition.”
The CDC said it is deploying resources from the agency’s offices — who were already in the country — to help with efforts including surveillance, contact tracing and laboratory testing, and will mobilize additional support from the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta.
Pillai said the CDC was unaware of any exposure on international flights and noted that both countries have exit screening measures in place to prevent spread of the virus through travel.
International coordination is being ramped up to prevent the epidemic’s spread as experts warn of “extremely concerning” conditions. The DRC’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, said Sunday that three treatment centres were being opened in the affected region to increase capacity amid the outbreak.
About seven metric tons of emergency medical supplies, including protective equipment, tents and beds, arrived in the Ituri capital Bunia on Sunday to “help scale up frontline response efforts,” according to WHO.
And non-governmental organizations like MSF are also preparing to launch large-scale responses as quickly as possible.
Complicating the response is that the outbreak is occurring on top of a humanitarian crisis, where conflict in the DRC’s eastern provinces has displaced millions of people and weakened health systems.
In Uganda, the two confirmed cases in Kampala have no known connection to each other, which is “often a warning sign that the outbreak in the DRC is larger than health authorities can currently see,” Adrian Esterman, professor and chair of Biostatistics at Adelaide University, said in a statement.
The suspected deaths include four health workers, according to WHO.
Dr. Matt Mason, senior lecturer for the School of Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast said this “raises serious concerns about gaps in infection prevention and control and the potential for amplification within health facilities, leading to the wider community.”
This is the 17th Ebola outbreak in the DRC since the virus was first identified in 1976, according to WHO. The country is particularly prone to Ebola outbreaks in part because the virus’ “natural reservoir” is the fruit bat, which are found within the DRC’s forested areas, public health expert Ahmed Ogwell, former deputy director-general at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told CNN. Locals in those areas are closely engaged with the forest, meaning they are very exposed to the bats and with them the virus, Ogwell said.
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CNN’s Ben Tinker, Nadia Kounang, Billy Stockwell and Niamh Kennedy contributed reporting.
