Congo Ebola outbreak may be worst ever, Africa CDC says

By Emma Farge and Anait Miridzhanian

NAIROBI/DAKAR, June 16 (Reuters) – The head of Africa’s Centres for Disease ​Control and Prevention warned on Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in Congo could be the worst ever, saying that it could cost billions of dollars to contain later if critical weaknesses in the response are not addressed quickly.

Over 800 cases of the rare Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no proven treatment or vaccine, have been reported in Congo, 192 of them fatal. The disease, transmitted through body fluids even after death, is spreading fast across three provinces, government data shows. 

“If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon it will be worse than what we had in West Africa and eastern DRC,” Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya told a virtual meeting of African heads of state in Burundi.

His warning, which echoed a similar projection by the U.S. CDC, referred to the outbreak that affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014 to 2016, which killed over 11,000 people, and a less deadly 2018 outbreak in Congo.

A Red Cross official said separately on Tuesday that the Ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo had not yet peaked.

“We are afraid that this could last one year to end this disease,” Bruno Michon, operations manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told reporters by video link from eastern Congo.   

CRITICAL CHALLENGES

The response has been hampered by a lack of treatment centres and by community resistance to stringent hygiene measures. Health officials said that, over a month since the outbreak was declared, the true scale is still unknown.

Michon said IFRC teams, which help with community engagement and safe and dignified burials of Ebola victims, had faced verbal abuse, threats and attacks in recent days.

Africa CDC’s Kaseya listed a series of critical challenges including insufficient resources to trace the contacts of the over 800 confirmed Ebola cases.

“We are just following 12% of our people. This is a major indicator for us. It means we don’t know the magnitude of this outbreak so far,” he said. There also are major shortages in the number of burial teams and a reported lack of personal protective equipment, he said.

RISING COSTS

Africa’s CDC is seeking $518 million for a joint plan with the World Health Organization aimed at containing the outbreak in Africa, warning that it could cost tens of billions of dollars later if support is not forthcoming.

“If we don’t have it in the next four weeks, we will not ask again for $500 million, we’ll be asking about $1.5 billion. If we delay that, it will be $7.5 billion,” Kaseya said.

“If we don’t invest today with clear action to target all these weaknesses we are talking about, we will be responding to an outbreak that would cost a lot of money.”

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said at the same meeting it would increase its pledge to fight Ebola to $13.5 million. China also said it would provide more emergency support.

(Reporting by Emma Farge and Vincent Mumo Nzilani; Editing by Alison Williams, Kevin Liffey and Bill Berkrot)