Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a new Ebolaoutbreak almost every year. The current epidemic, however, is different.
Most Ebola outbreaks, including a devastating epidemic several years ago that caused at least 11,000 deaths in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, can be traced back to the Zaire strain, for which a vaccine has now been developed. The latest outbreak is, however, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, which is named after a region in Uganda where it was first reported in 2007. There is neither a vaccine nor drug to fight this strain, which kills around one in three of those it infects.
The current outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ugandais the third and already deadliest Bundibugyo-related epidemic so far. As of Wednesday, at least 139 people were thought to have died, with an additional 600 suspected cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
"I'm deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom at this week's UN General Assembly in the Swiss city of Geneva. He also warned that "these numbers will change as field operations are scaling up, including strengthening surveillance, contact tracing, and laboratory testing."Ebola: What to know after WHO declares health emergencyTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
