Geneva: The deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has still not reached its peak and could take as long as a year to bring under control, the Red Cross said on Tuesday, as concern grew over major gaps in the response, AFP reported.
At a meeting on Tuesday in Evian, France, G7 leaders urged a “strong and coordinated response” to contain the outbreak, which has killed nearly 200 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
As containment efforts are expanded, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Tuesday added to mounting warnings about the widening scale of the crisis in the DRC.
“The peak is, I think, not beyond us, but in front of us,” Bruno Michon, the IFRC’s operations manager for the outbreak, told reporters in Geneva.
“We are afraid that this could last one year” before the epidemic is over, he said, speaking from Bunia, the capital of the DRC’s northeastern Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
Since the outbreak was declared on May 15, 808 cases have been confirmed in the DRC, including 192 deaths, according to the latest World Health Organization figures.
Serious Obstacles
The response to the epidemic, the 17th to hit the vast central African nation, has run into serious obstacles.
No approved vaccines or treatments exist for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus behind the current outbreak.
The three affected provinces in northeastern DRC — Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu — have long been affected by conflict and mass displacement, making response work more difficult.
The region has also seen conflict casualty figures rise further since the outbreak began, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, adding strain to an already fragile health system.
“A sudden geographic expansion of the epidemic is feared if public health measures are not implemented quickly,” the Congolese National Institute of Public Health warned in its daily situation report.
The outbreak has also spread to neighbouring Uganda, where 19 confirmed cases and two deaths have been reported.
MSF and Oxfam said this week that the true extent of the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is still unclear, since the disease spreads through close contact and infected bodily fluids.
“No-one knows the true scale or exactly where the disease is spreading,” Kate White, MSF’s emergency medical coordinator in the DRC, said on Monday, adding that “testing remains one of the most significant weaknesses”.
Lack Of Clean Water
Oxfam said weak contact tracing was tied to “the withdrawal of US funding for disease surveillance and severe funding shortfalls”. The aid group also cited a severe shortage of clean water in Ebola-hit areas, along with a lack of basic protective gear for health workers.
Although testing capacity has improved significantly in recent weeks, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said on Tuesday that “blind spots” still remain.
“There may be transmission chains that are not being detected,” he told reporters in Geneva.
Michon said distrust remains a major challenge in a region where the Congolese state has been absent in many areas for decades.
He added that hospitals and medics in eastern DRC have again faced attacks and riots, with some criticising the government’s response and others denying that Ebola exists at all.
“To stop this outbreak, we need to invest not only in medical response, but also in trust, local volunteers, community engagement and operational access,” Michon said.
He said DRC Red Cross volunteers have recently faced verbal abuse, threats and even physical attacks while working.
“Trust is central,” he said.
“Without trust, we cannot detect cases early. We cannot ensure safe burials. We cannot protect families. And we cannot stop transmission.”
