BUNIA, Congo – Confirmed cases of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo have reached 1,003, including 254 deaths, officials said, as it remains a major challenge to find those who had been in contact with the patients.
100 people have recovered from the incident that struck Ituri province since it was announced on May 15, the Congolese Ministry of Health said on Sunday. At least 365 patients are in hospitals or in isolation, it said.
The Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment, was the worst on record in the first month. Officials acknowledge that there may be many more undiagnosed cases and that the peak of the outbreak is yet to come.
Contact tracing remains a key issue for local authorities, which have achieved a coverage rate of only 55%, the department said.
“If you want to control the outbreak of the disease, especially the Ebola outbreak, you must know the index case. We do not know when this outbreak started,” said the Director-General of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Jean Kaseya told the Associated Press last week.
Officials are still identifying patient zero and tracing more than 35,000 people who have been in contact with people infected since last week, authorities said.
This is because eastern Congo is also fighting ongoing rebel violence. In Ituri, attacks by the Islamic State group backed by the Allied Democratic Force group have blocked access to many towns and forced people to flee their homes, including those sheltering in overcrowded camps and others on the move.
More than a month after the outbreak, officials believe the disease continues to outpace response efforts and no one knows its true extent.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the latest Ebola outbreak
At Kigonze camp in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, camp officials on Friday said 10 people died last week under unusual circumstances, raising fears of an outbreak in the camp of more than 20,000 displaced people.
There was no confirmed case of Ebola in the area, camp officials said, but added that the death rate was unprecedented and called for an investigation.
The UN refugee agency said at least two million people who were forcibly displaced from their homes, including more than 320,000 refugees, live in Ebola-prone areas in Congo.
In a statement on Friday, the agency said it was “deeply concerned about the rapid spread” of the virus and the “increasing risk it poses to displaced communities across the region.”
“If a disease or epidemic were to spread among the thousands of people living in this area (Kigonze), it would be a real disaster if we look at our living conditions which are already very critical,” said Charité Banza, a leader of a community organization in Ituri.
