The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is already in Bunia, the capital of the Congolese province of Ituri, to supervise on the ground, from the epicenter of the emergency, the response to one of the most serious Ebola outbreaks recorded in the recent history of this African country.
The latest report released last Friday by the WHO on the evolution of the outbreak describes a viral outbreak "that continues to evolve rapidly and is increasing in cases, geographical spread, and cross-border transmission" into Ugandan territory. Health authorities count 18 deaths and 134 confirmed infections, while 223 additional deaths and 906 possible infections are being investigated as suspected cases.
Since the previous update, of May 21, the WHO has incorporated 49 new confirmed cases and eight more deaths. In parallel, 160 suspected cases and 47 deaths potentially linked to the virus have been added, which have swelled the United Nations registry in the past week. Among those affected is a confirmed case in a United States citizen who treated patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is receiving medical treatment in Germany.
Coinciding with Tedros' arrival in the country, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned in a statement that the outbreak is spreading at an alarming rate in an extremely complex context. "Never before has an Ebola outbreak registered so many cases so shortly after its declaration," the organization has stated, whose teams "are witnessing a response that has not yet adapted to the rapid spread of the epidemic."
Unlike most previous emergencies related to the Ebola disease, this episode is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which there are no authorized vaccines or specific therapies, and whose diagnosis is especially complicated by the limited capacity available for testing.
MSF emphasizes that, in the current situation, no one knows the true magnitude or severity of the outbreak precisely: new suspected cases are reported every day, but hundreds of samples remain pending analysis in laboratories.
The NGO also denounces that the number of specialized medical organizations deployed on the ground continues to be clearly insufficient and that the operational support provided, "including ours," is far below what is necessary. The affected population, it insists, urgently requires a response proportional to the dimension of the health crisis it faces.
To achieve a certain control of the situation, even if partial, humanitarian entities demand an immediate expansion of diagnostic capacity through tests and a rapid, coordinated, and adapted improvement of the entire epidemic response system.