Nairobi, June 12 (SANA) The World Health Organization warned Friday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be significantly larger than official estimates, citing “blind spots” in high-risk areas.
“There are still a number of blind spots in some high-risk areas, and surveillance in those areas is urgently needed,” Olivier le Polain, an epidemiologist with WHO in Beni, eastern Congo, told Reuters.
Among other major challenges is a severe shortage of isolation beds, with only 250 beds available across the three affected regions, he added.
The current outbreak is linked to the rare Bundibugyo strain, for which no approved treatment or vaccine yet exists.
Outbreak spreads to new areas
On Thursday, Kinshasa announced the outbreak had spread to three new health districts, with 676 confirmed cases and 136 deaths reported. The disease has also reached neighboring Uganda.
In a concerning development, the UN refugee agency confirmed two Ebola-related deaths in the Kabanga camp in Congo, which houses 30,000 displaced people. The agency warned that transmission risks are extremely high in crowded camps, requiring urgent prevention and response measures.
Le Polain said WHO has not yet released estimates of the outbreak’s size. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suggested it could reach the scale of the West Africa outbreak between 2014 and 2016, which killed more than 11,000 people.
Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever that can be fatal, first emerged in 1976 simultaneously in Nzara, Sudan, and Yambuku, Congo. It was named after the Ebola River near the village where the outbreak began in Congo.
According to WHO, three types of viruses cause widespread Ebola disease: Ebola virus, Sudan virus and Bundibugyo virus, for which no specific treatment yet exists.
KhA
