{"id":1013785,"date":"2026-08-20T23:47:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T23:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1013785\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T23:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T23:47:20","slug":"ebola-outbreak-out-of-control-in-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-who-says-it-is-spreading-faster-than-our-ability-to-contain-it-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1013785\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola outbreak out of control in Democratic Republic of the Congo, WHO says: \u2018It is spreading faster than our ability to contain it\u2019 | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hubert Nendakala no longer describes Ebola as a distant threat. In three weeks, the 40-year-old architect has lost a cousin and her husband, both border police officers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose eastern provinces are enduring an outbreak<\/a> that has already caused more than 5,100 infections and 2,420 deaths since it began circulating earlier this year. \u201cTaking it lightly could decimate us,\u201d Nendakala warns EL PA\u00cdS.<\/p>\n

In the streets of Bunia, the capital of Ituri province and one of the outbreak\u2019s epicenters, fear has seized local residents like Nendakala. \u201cI am very afraid and I urge my fellow citizens to protect themselves,\u201d he says from the town.<\/p>\n

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo variant<\/a>, is the 17th recorded in the DRC and has just become its deadliest on record after surpassing the 2018 outbreak, which caused 2,300 deaths over 30 months. The World Health Organization is watching it with concern, since its virulence also makes it the fastest-growing outbreak to date and the second-deadliest after the 2014\u20132016 epidemic that swept Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, killing more than 11,300 people.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s head of humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, warned last week that one person is dying every 30 minutes in the DRC as a result of this Ebola variant, for which there is still no approved vaccine or authorized treatment. Existing products are ineffective because they were designed to fight the Zaire strain<\/a>, which caused the crisis in western Africa a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus<\/a>, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said from Geneva on Tuesday that the situation remains \u201cvery high\u201d risk for the DRC, \u201chigh\u201d risk for Uganda and countries bordering the DRC, and \u201clow\u201d for the rest of Africa. \u201cWe have to be frank: the outbreak is far from under control. It has pulled well ahead, and we are still playing catch-up. What worries me most is where people are dying: at home, within their communities, outside healthcare centers and off the lists of identified contacts,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\n

We have to be frank: the outbreak is far from under control<\/p>\n

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The current outbreak has already affected six of the DRC\u2019s 26 provinces in the east and northeast: Haut-U\u00e9l\u00e9, Tshopo and Bas-U\u00e9l\u00e9, Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. More than 55 health zones are affected by the disease and over 1,000 people have recovered after receiving symptomatic treatment.<\/p>\n

One of the challenges of this outbreak is controlling chains of transmission. According to Dr. Jean Kaseya<\/a>, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), between 60% and 70% of deaths related to this hemorrhagic fever have occurred within communities rather than in hospitals or treatment centers.<\/p>\n

Containing it is not impossible: Uganda managed to extinguish its Bundibugyo outbreak<\/a> in July after recording barely two dozen cases, thanks to early diagnosis and intensive contact tracing \u2014 a contrast epidemiologists use to explain the initial failure of the response in the DRC.<\/p>\n

Herv\u00e9 Amani, an activist for good governance and human rights in the DRC, says the country\u2019s Ebola response is marked by unprecedented \u201clethargy\u201d and calls for greater seriousness from the authorities. \u201cInstead of telling us that we have experience in responding to Ebola outbreaks, the fundamental question is rather what the state is doing to anticipate the challenges posed by Ebola and adapt its response. With Ebola, every hour counts. We know the consequences of late detection. Unfortunately, we are in a situation where the outbreak is spreading faster than our ability to contain it,\u201d he tells this newspaper.<\/p>\n

That late detection is due to the fact that, although the outbreak is suspected to have begun circulating in January or February 2026, it was not declared until May because of doctors\u2019 diagnostic errors, who attributed patients\u2019 symptoms to other illnesses such as malaria<\/a>, typhus, or seasonal flu \u2014 which present similar symptoms in early stages \u2014 because the diagnostic tests used initially were designed to detect the Zaire virus and did not identify Bundibugyo.<\/p>\n

\"\"A healthcare worker in Mongbwalu, Ituri province, on July 24.Gradel Muyisa Mumbere (REUTERS)<\/p>\n

Esther Makalili, a resident of Rwampara in Ituri, has also felt Ebola\u2019s blow up close. She lost her uncle in early August and now feels she will never get used to seeing his empty chair at home. \u201cThe death of our loved ones from Ebola leaves gaps in our lives that will never be filled. We can no longer come to terms with seeing certain seats empty in our homes. May the state put in place the necessary measures to contain this disease,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ebola is also having a huge economic impact on the population of Ituri province. Many parents say the restrictions imposed by the Congolese authorities are placing them in a difficult situation.<\/p>\n

That is the case of Upoki Uruturu, 55, a father of 12. He earns a living fishing on Lake Albert in Kasenyi, on the border between the DRC and Uganda, and says it is increasingly difficult to afford basic living costs. He is struggling to prepare for his children\u2019s return to school, which will take place in 10 days. \u201cThe new school year is about to start and I still haven\u2019t bought notebooks or other school supplies for my children,\u201d he laments.<\/p>\n

Uruturu adds that the social-distancing measures recommended by Congolese health authorities have reduced the number of fishermen on Lake Albert, negatively affecting the amount of fish caught.<\/p>\n

Professor Pierre Akilimali, one of the DRC\u2019s Ebola response coordinators, lists other factors besides late detection that are contributing to the spread of the Bundibugyo strain, such as overcrowding caused by mining, insecurity from armed conflict, and community resistance. Eastern DRC has been mired for almost three decades in violence carried out by more than a hundred armed groups<\/a> that has forced at least 6.9 million people to flee, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). That constant mobility hinders contact tracing, epidemiological surveillance, and early isolation of cases.<\/p>\n

WHO response<\/p>\n

In an effort to control the disease, WHO has announced a reinforcement of community surveillance, increased treatment capacity, more work with communities to build trust to involve them in the health response, as well as progress in clinical trials of treatments and two experimental vaccines already in the human testing phase. It has also focused on ensuring safe and dignified burials to prevent infections that can occur during handling, washing, and other traditional rituals performed by the deceased\u2019s loved ones in these communities.<\/p>\n

Thierno Bald\u00e9, WHO lead for Bundibugyo virus disease in the DRC, based in Bunia, says efforts are focusing on decentralizing the response and bringing it closer to communities. \u201cWHO and its partners hope to see the effects of this scaled-up response in the coming months, but cannot set a precise timeline for when the outbreak will be brought under control,\u201d he said during a videoconference with the press on Tuesday from Geneva.<\/p>\n

Bald\u00e9 said the outbreak could be reversed in three months if the necessary resources were available. However, WHO has warned it has received only 60% of the $115 million needed to contain the epidemic. This shortfall comes at a time when international aid has suffered draconian cuts after a sharp reduction in U.S. funding<\/a> \u2014 historically one of the world\u2019s largest donors \u2014 which has cut about 70% of funds allocated to the health sector in the DRC, according to WHO.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Bald\u00e9 says efforts to end this virulent outbreak will not cease. \u201cWe plan to increase our capacity to 3,000 beds in the coming months, whilst ensuring that the three healthcare and nursing professionals required to care for each patient are properly trained,\u201d he asserts.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hubert Nendakala no longer describes Ebola as a distant threat. In three weeks, the 40-year-old architect has lost…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1013786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[116398,53721,210,32321,405645,22770,31689,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1013785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ebola","tag-guinea","tag-health","tag-liberia","tag-sierra-leona","tag-uganda","tag-un","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117130511652712688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1013786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}