WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on February 17 reported 220 suspected deaths in the current Ebola outbreak and acknowledged that delayed case detection has forced response teams to play catch-up.
'We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment the outbreak is running faster than us,' Tedros said, urging countries bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to take immediate action. Earlier the same day, Uganda reported two more Ebola cases, raising its confirmed total to seven.
In a social media post on February 16, the WHO chief said intensified surveillance efforts in the DRC's Ebola response have identified over 900 suspected cases so far. Ebola is a viral disease transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, causing severe bleeding and organ failure that can lead to death.
The epicenter of the current outbreak is in Ituri province in northeastern DRC, and has spread to neighboring provinces up to 200 kilometers away, as well as across the border into Uganda. No vaccine or treatment exists yet for the new Ebola Bundibugyo strain. Last week, WHO declared the rare Bundibugyo strain outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, with fear gripping cities in both DRC and Uganda.
Meanwhile, Uganda's health authorities reported two more confirmed Ebola cases on February 17, raising the national tally to seven. The two new cases are healthcare workers at a private clinic in the capital Kampala, both Ugandan nationals, according to the health ministry.
Hospital Attacked in DRC
On the evening of February 16, an angry mob stormed an Ebola treatment hospital in eastern DRC, forcing medical staff to urgently evacuate patients as gunfire erupted. It remains unclear if anyone was injured in the attack on Mongbwalu General Hospital, but its medical director Richard Lokudu said the attackers demanded the return of the bodies of two relatives.
On February 15, residents of Mongbwalu in Ituri province set fire to a tent sheltering suspected and confirmed Ebola cases run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF). In that attack, 18 suspected Ebola cases fled the facility and remain missing. On February 13, a treatment center in Rwampara town was also burned down after family members were barred from retrieving the body of a local man suspected to have died from Ebola.
Congo's authorities have mandated that burials of suspected Ebola victims be managed by officials wherever possible, a measure that sometimes faces resistance from families and friends. On February 14, the government announced a ban on funeral ceremonies and gatherings of more than 50 people in northeastern DRC to curb the virus's spread.
