We’re Still Behind in Ebola Outbreak Even as Testing Improves, WHO Chief Says

The Congolese military said 16 people were killed in an attack late Tuesday by a group affiliated with the Islamic State (a group known as the Allied Democratic Forces) in Beni district in North Kivu province.

The militants launched the attack in response to a joint operation by the Congolese and Ugandan armies fighting the group, which operates in the border areas of the two countries. Last month, the group attacked Congolese villages near the Ugandan border, killing at least 40 people and burning and looting homes.

The violence has disrupted efforts to combat an outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola declared in eastern Congo’s Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in mid-May.

Congolese authorities have since confirmed 60 deaths out of 344 cases in the outbreak. The number of suspected cases decreased from 906 to 116. Neighboring Uganda has 15 confirmed cases, including one death, the health ministry said Tuesday.

WHO chief offers some hope for pandemic

Testing has been increased and laboratory and diagnostic capacity has increased in the fight against Ebola, but contact tracing in Congo is “not yet where it needs to be,” the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday.

“The pandemic has provided a huge advantage and we are still behind,” he said. But “we’re getting closer.”

Tedros spoke a day after returning to Geneva from Congo, where he visited the epicenter of the outbreak. “Although the problems remain, what I saw gave me hope.”

He also said that general travel restrictions imposed by some countries “disrupt supply chains and impede intervention” and called for their removal. He emphasized that WHO recommends exit screening at airports, ports and border crossings.

He dodged a reporter’s question about the U.S. quarantine center in Kenya where American Ebola patients would be quarantined, sparking protests.

“I think based on their risk assessment they (the US) can do whatever they think is right for them,” the WHO chief said.

The epidemic hit a highly sensitive area

Experts said the virus spread in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions for weeks before laboratory tests confirmed it. Resources, including protective equipment for a strain of Ebola for which there is no approved drug or vaccine, have been diverted to the outbreak.

At least five people have recovered from the virus, a rare sign of hope.

Médecins Sans Frontières said of case numbers on Monday: “It is still difficult to assess the true extent of the epidemic. Extremely limited testing capacity and difficulties in accessing certain areas require these figures to be interpreted with caution.”

It could take months for a potential vaccine to reach the region.

Dr. Congolese epidemiologist, who has managed previous outbreaks in the country. “An effective vaccine that complies with the scientific protocol is difficult to obtain quickly,” Aruna Abedi told The Associated Press.

While laboratory and diagnostic resources for the outbreak have improved, Tedros said tracking of people who had contact with infected people in Congo is still lagging behind.

“Only 45 percent of contacts have been traced, and we need to increase this number to over 90 percent to prevent the epidemic,” he said. “Insecurity, displacement and mobile populations make contact tracing particularly challenging.”

Congo has long struggled with multiple security crises, and insecurity has created a huge and vulnerable displaced population over the years. Eastern Congo, where the last Ebola outbreak occurred, has many active armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group and the ISIS-affiliated group, which captured the key cities of Goma and Bukavu a year ago.

Cautious residents have attacked health centers during the epidemic and at times demanded the bodies of their loved ones. Health care workers are also struggling with some residents’ false beliefs that Ebola is not real, preventing some from seeking care.