An international effort is underway to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda that has infected hundreds of people and caused dozens of suspected deaths, as the United States looks to relocate a “small number” of its citizens affected.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern.” The latest outbreak does not yet meet the criteria of a “pandemic emergency,” but the WHO warned the high positivity rate and increasing number of cases and deaths across health zones point toward “a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported.”
The United Nations health body said there have been at least 80 suspected deaths, eight laboratory-confirmed cases and 246 suspected cases reported as of Saturday in the DRC’s remote northeastern Ituri province. In neighboring Uganda, two laboratory-confirmed cases, including one death, have so far been reported in the country’s capital Kampala, WHO reported.
The latest outbreak is being driven by the Bundibugyo strain, one of several viruses that can cause Ebola disease, WHO said. The WHO has called the outbreak “extraordinary” as there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines specific to the Bundibugyo virus.
