Adedokun Waliyu Nearly 500 Ebola cases have now been confirmed in the deadly outbreak raging in central Africa, a WHO overview showed Saturday, amid mounting concern over the swelling scale of the epidemic.
In its daily update on the situation, the World Health Organization tallied 452 confirmed cases, including 82 deaths, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak was declared three weeks ago.
In neighbouring Uganda, meanwhile, it counted 19 confirmed cases, including two deaths.
The total of 471 cases and 84 deaths, based on numbers reported by the DRC and Ugandan governments, marked a hike of 100 cases and 20 deaths from a day earlier.
The increase came amid warnings that the outbreak, which the WHO has declared an international public health emergency, could eventually swell to become the largest on record.
A top official at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said that models indicated that without strong public health interventions, the current outbreak risked rivalling the scale of the 2014 West Africa epidemic, which saw over 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths.
“That scale is possible,” said Jason Asher, director of the CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, during a press briefing.
Ebola, which is spread through close contact and bodily fluids, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.
The current outbreak was declared on May 15 in northeastern DR Congo, but the virus is believed to have spread undetected for some time before then.
There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola responsible for the outbreak.
The WHO and the African CDC launched a $518-million plan to combat the outbreak over the next six months, focusing on strengthening surveillance, laboratory testing, and infection prevention measures.
“The outbreak is moving fast, and we are still playing catch-up,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
“We need to stop the outbreak where it is, support countries that are responding today, and ensure that neighbouring countries are ready to detect and act quickly if cases appear,” he said.
“This is a serious outbreak and it’s one we know how to stop, but we need to move fast and together.”
