The World Health Organisation warns that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains uncontrolled as transmission expands.
KINSHASA: The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains uncontrolled despite a modest decline in infections nationwide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said, reported Xinhua.
Transmission is shifting to new areas and spreading towards an international border.
The country had recorded 7,733 confirmed cases, including 3,732 deaths, as of Sunday, according to the WHO Regional Office for Africa.
“The outbreak remains uncontrolled and increasingly geographically dispersed,” the WHO said, warning that the spread was putting further pressure on already stretched response resources.
The latest spread was reported in Dungu health zone in Haut-Uele province, which borders South Sudan.
The WHO said the development heightened the potential for cross-border transmission.
The outbreak has now affected 63 health zones across seven provinces.
Pressure on treatment facilities remains acute in North Kivu province, where standardised Ebola treatment facilities were 91.2 per cent occupied, while 34.2 per cent of hospitalised patients were being treated outside standardised facilities.
Community deaths also remain a major concern. Nearly two-thirds of confirmed deaths recorded in the latest week occurred outside treatment facilities, a sign of continued delays in detection, referral and access to care, according to the WHO.
The agency continues to assess the risk of further spread within the DRC as “very high” and the risk to neighbouring countries that share land borders with the DRC as “high”.
The outbreak, declared in May, has become the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the DRC and the second-largest Ebola outbreak globally, after the 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic.
— Bernama, Xinhua
