WHO Chief Concerned Over Scale and Speed of Ebola Outbreak

Health experts and aid workers have said the virus spread unnoticed for weeks after the first known death as authorities tested for a more common strain of Ebola and returned a negative result. There is no approved drug or vaccine for Bundibugyo virus.

In Bunia, where the first known death occurred, healthcare workers in protective clothing moved among residents wearing fabric masks. “I know the consequences of Ebola, I know what it’s like,” said Noëla Lumo, a concerned resident.

Virus expert Jean-Jacques Muyembe of the National Biomedical Research Institute said Congo was awaiting shipments from the United States and Britain of an experimental vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford for different strains of Ebola.

“We will administer the vaccine and see who develops the disease,” he said. However, experts said such efforts would take time.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic” and pointed out the emergence of cases in urban areas, deaths of healthcare workers and serious population movements.

Tedros later told a meeting of the UN health agency’s emergency committee that 30 cases had been confirmed in Congo. He said neighboring Uganda had reported two confirmed cases to WHO, including one death in the capital Kampala among people traveling from Congo.

WHO expects the outbreak to last for at least months. WHO has declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern requiring a coordinated response. Resources were being transferred to two affected areas near Uganda. Parts of eastern Congo are held by armed rebels, making it difficult to send aid.

The head of the WHO team in Congo, Dr. Mother Ancia said authorities had not identified “patient number zero.”

He also said that the Ervebo vaccine, used against a different strain of Ebola, was among the vaccines being considered for possible use, but it would take two months for any approved vaccine to be available.

“I don’t think we’ll be done with this pandemic in two months,” he said.

For now, neither the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the African Centers for Disease Control are operating, Ancia said, but others, including Médecins Sans Frontières and the Red Cross, are.

UNICEF’s office in Bunia said that 16 tons of aid supplies were initially sent, including disinfectants and soaps, personal protective equipment, water purification tablets and water tanks.

Hela Skhiri, UNICEF’s Bunia office chief, said relief supplies will be distributed according to need to three treatment centers in Ituri province.

Cases were confirmed in Bunia, the capital of Congo’s Ituri province; Goma, the rebel-controlled capital of North Kivu; and Mongbwalu, Nyakunde and Butembo districts, which together are home to more than one million people.

The Christian organization he works for, Serge, American doctor Dr. He said Peter Stafford was also among the Bunia cases. He was treating patients in the hospital.

Tedros said an American tested positive and was transferred to Germany, but did not confirm the patient’s identity.

Panic is rising among some residents Ebola is a highly contagious virus and can be transmitted through bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, and unexplained bleeding or bruising.

During an epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people more than a decade ago, many people became infected while washing bodies at funerals.

Dr. D., an associate professor at Brown University School of Public Health and a survivor after contracting Ebola in Guinea more than a decade ago. “Ebola is very much a disease of compassion in that it affects people who are more likely to care for sick people,” Craig Spencer said.

Panic was growing in Bunia neighborhoods on Tuesday. Local authorities urged people to remain calm and follow preventive measures such as practicing good hygiene and exercising caution during funerals.

“It’s really sad and painful because we’ve already been through a security crisis and now Ebola is here too,” said Justin Ndasi, a Bunia resident. “We need to protect ourselves to protect ourselves from this epidemic,” he said.

Muyembe, the virus expert, said the key challenge was breaking the chain of virus transmission, adding that most previous Ebola outbreaks in Congo “were contained simply by implementing public health measures.”

False negative tests delayed response Congo said the first person died of the virus in Bunia on April 24, but there was no confirmation for weeks. The body was returned to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining district with a large population.

“This led to an escalation of the Ebola epidemic,” said Samuel Roger Kamba, Congo’s health minister.

When another person fell ill on April 26, samples were sent to Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, for testing, according to the Africa CDC. Bunia is located more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away, in a country with the worst infrastructure in the world.

Congolese officials said samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common strain of Ebola known as Zaire. Ministry of Health’s Ebola Incident Manager Dr. Richard Kitenge said the results were negative.

On May 5, WHO was alerted to the deaths of nearly 50 people in Mongbwalu, including four healthcare workers. The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14.

“Our surveillance system did not work,” Muyembe said. “The Bunia laboratory…should have continued the search and sent the samples to the national laboratory. Something went wrong there. That’s why we ended up in this disastrous situation.”

Only laboratories in Kinshasa and Goma, currently controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, have the capacity to test for the Bundibugyo variant of Ebola.

M23 permanent secretary Benjamin Mbonimpa said the rebel government had established entry and exit points in Goma and would take responsibility for funeral services if the virus spread.

“Our priority is to protect the population within our jurisdiction and we urge people to continue their daily activities,” he said.

Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Center for Global Health Policy and Policy at Georgetown University, criticized the Trump administration’s previous decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid — “the full surveillance system was intended to catch these viruses early.”

The US State Department announced it was providing $13 million for the response.

Dr. from WHO in Bunia. Ancia said the funding cuts “have had a significant detrimental impact on humanitarian actors.”

In the field, the response is complicated by a lack of resources.

Trish Newport, emergency program manager for the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said her team in Bunia identified suspected cases over the weekend at Salama hospital, which does not have an isolation ward. They unsuccessfully tried to relocate them to another health facility in Bunia.

“The team called other healthcare facilities to see if there was isolation,” he said. “Every healthcare facility they called said, ‘It’s full of suspected cases. We don’t have room.’ That gives you a vision of how crazy the current situation is.”