Disease-trackers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are doing a better job tracking people at risk of Ebola infection, vaccinating those contacts and giving people therapeutic drugs if they catch the virus, though the outbreak remains at a “key juncture” and “must be interpreted with caution,” the World Health Organization said Friday.
Despite the well-organized response, an additional 13 cases were reported in the last week, bringing the total to 116 confirmed and probable cases. The outbreak has been linked to 77 deaths, including one in a health worker.
Four of the new infections were among people who weren’t known contacts of other infected people, so it’s unclear how they got the disease.
Also, WHO recorded “sporadic instances” of detrimental behavior in North Kivu province, including unsafe burials, resistance to vaccination and delays in getting people to treatment centers.
Each of these behaviors “have the potential to further propagate the outbreak,” WHO said.
Global responders say the outbreak is a difficult one to manage, because it’s unfolding in an area that borders Uganda and Rwanda and is marked by armed conflict and a highly migratory population.
Still, WHO says the likelihood of global spread remains low.
“WHO advises against any restriction of travel and trade to the Democratic Republic of the Congo based on the currently available information,” it said in a status report. “WHO continues to closely monitor and, if necessary, verify travel and trade measures in relation to this event.”
WHO said more than 5,000 contacts have received a trial vaccine that’s suppled by Merck and proved to be effective during the West African outbreak in 2015.
Among them, 1,040 are health care or front-line workers and more than 1,340 are children.
More than 7,000 additional doses of vaccine have been transported to Beni, a city at the center of the outbreak, in case they are needed.
Also, for the first time, WHO is deploying five investigational drugs to treat Ebola.
Twenty patients have received the therapies, and two of them were discharged from treatment after they tested negative for the disease.
Ebola is a serious illness that is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads from human to human through the bodily fluids of people who exhibit symptoms.
The outbreak in North Kivu is the DRC’s 10th since Ebola was discovered there in the late 1970s. It was confirmed one month ago, just days after WHO celebrated the end of a separate Congolese outbreak 1,500 miles away.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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