Frequent burials and at least 80 dead as Congo grapples with Ebola outbreak

At least 80 deaths have been reported in Congo’s new Ebola disease outbreak in the eastern Ituri province, authorities said, as health workers raced Saturday to intensify screening and contact tracing to contain the disease. 

Officials first announced the outbreak on Friday, with 65 deaths and 246 suspected cases. Locals in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, said they were afraid for their lives amid frequent burials. 

“Every day, people are dying … and this has been going on for about a week. In a single day, we bury two, three or even more people,” said Jean Marc Asimwe, a resident of Bunia. 

Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said late Friday there have been eight laboratory-confirmed cases, and among them four deaths.

Test results confirmed it is the Bundibugyo virus, a variant of the disease that has been less prominent in Congo’s past outbreaks. This is Congo’s 17th outbreak since Ebola first emerged in the country in 1976.

Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted through bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal. 

The Bundibugyo virus has only been responsible for two previous Ebola outbreaks, according to CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder. One, in Uganda in 2007, resulted in 55 cases. The other, in the Congo in 2012, resulted in 57 cases. There are no approved vaccines or treatments for this strain of Ebola, Gounder said, noting “medical professionals seem very concerned about the possibility or the ability to contain this.” 

The suspected index case in the latest outbreak is a nurse who died at a hospital in Bunia, Kamba said. He said the case dates back to April 24.

He did not say whether samples from the nurse were tested, but said the person presented symptoms suggestive of Ebola.

A New York doctor who contracted and survived Ebola more than 10 years ago told CBS News on Friday that he is “really concerned” for healthcare workers treating Ebola patients. Medical staff have “very close contact with people when they’re most contagious,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room physician and public health professor at Brown University. 

Outbreak spreads to neighboring Uganda 

Uganda confirmed Friday an Ebola case that authorities said was “imported” from Congo. The person died at the Kibuli Muslim Hospital in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, on May 14.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had said it is concerned about the risk of further spread due to the proximity of affected areas to Uganda and South Sudan.

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said it was preparing a “large-scale response” and called the rapid spread of the outbreak “extremely concerning,” according to the Agence France-Presse.

The body of the patient who died in Kampala was later taken back to Congo and no other local case has been confirmed, Uganda’s health ministry said.

On Saturday, people were being screened at the entrance of the Kibuli Muslim Hospital.

Ismail Kigongo, who resides in Kampala, said the new outbreak reminded him of his father, whom he lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I really get scared because I remember burying my father without looking at his body,” he said.

Kenya, Uganda’s neighbor, said Saturday there is only a “moderate risk of importation” of the Ebola virus due to regional travel. Kenya’s government said it has formed an Ebola preparedness team and has strengthened surveillance at all points of entry.

Logistical challenges complicate outbreak management 

Congo often faces logistical challenges in delivering expertise and supplies to affected regions during disease outbreaks. 

As Africa’s second-largest country by land area, Congo’s provinces are far from one another and mostly battling conflict. Ituri, for instance, is around 620 miles from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa, and is ravaged by violence from Islamic State-backed militants.

“What we know very well [is] that the country has experience, but the region where it is happening is highly volatile with the humanitarian situation going on and the population moving around from South Sudan to Uganda and other parts,” said Dr. Abdi Rahman Mahamud, World Health Organization director of health emergency alert and response operations, during a news conference Friday.

The disease has so far been confirmed in three health zones in Ituri province, including the capital city, Bunia, and the areas of Rwampara and Mongwalu, where the outbreak is concentrated.

Only 13 blood samples have been tested at the National Institute of Biomedical Research; eight tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain. The remaining five could not be analyzed due to insufficient sample volume, the health minister said.

In Bunia, Ituri’s main city, businesses and regular activities in public places appeared normal on Friday.

Resident Adeline Awekonimungu said she hopes the outbreak is quickly contained. “My recommendation is that the government take this matter seriously and that it takes charge of the hospitals so that this matter can be brought under control,” she said.

Questions about U.S. response remain  

The U.S. has been the single largest external player in Ebola outbreak response in the past, but experts worry the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its withdrawal of the country from the WHO may impact such efforts. 

Spencer said the U.S. does not have the capacity right now to respond quickly to global outbreaks. He suggested to CBS News there may be a connection between the shutdown of USAID and the fact that the latest outbreak was not announced until Friday. 

“Before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground,” Spencer said. “The CDC would have been on the ground at a moment’s notice, maybe even before a moment’s notice, of a new outbreak of Ebola because we were in a bunch of countries. We created relationships beforehand.”

Spencer also pointed to absences in the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response and other health agencies. However, he said the U.S. is still capable of dealing with the outbreak. 

Ebola “is not that great at spreading,” he said, and highlighted the United States’ response to a deadly outbreak of a rare strain of hantavirus aboard a Dutch cruise ship. 

“We’ve seen over the past couple weeks with the national quarantine unit we have in Nebraska and the over-a-dozen centers that we have around the U.S. that are capable of taking care of very high consequence pathogens like hantavirus and Ebola,” Spencer said. “These were all commitments that we made as a country, particularly and partly because of cases like my own a decade ago.”

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