The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to move faster than the response amid “intense” community transmission, with government officials announcing the death toll has surpassed 1,500.
In an update today, the Congolese government said 3,442 cases have been reported, with 1,521 deaths, according to the Associated Press. Cases and deaths have risen sharply over the past week, in what was already the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. The case-fatality rate is a sobering 44%.
Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director-General Jean Kaseya, MD, MPH, said at a press briefing today that, 11 weeks into the outbreak, the number of cases is now more than seven times the number recorded at the same point in the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, which is the largest on record.
“This is why we are saying it’s a very serious outbreak,” Kaseya said.
8 in 10 cases not tied to known patients
Kaseya said community transmission of the Bundibugyo virus, which is the Ebola species responsible for the outbreak, is intense, with a more than 40% test-positivity rate. But he said the primary issue is that more than 80% of new cases in Ituri province, the outbreak epicenter, are not linked to known cases, and more than 60% of Ebola deaths are coming from communities rather than treatment centers.
“We need to ensure that all new cases are coming from the contact list,” Kaseya said. “We need to ensure that all deaths are coming from confirmed cases that we have isolated or admitted.”
Kaseya will be traveling next week to Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, to meet with DRC health officials. When asked whether the surge in cases and deaths requires a rethinking of the response strategy, Kaseya suggested that more community involvement is needed. Community mistrust has been one of the factors hindering the response.
We need to rethink the way to work with the community if we really want to stop this outbreak.
Kaseya said that it will be difficult to control the outbreak unless community leaders can be enlisted to help prevent attacks against healthcare workers, ensure that safe burials of Ebola victims are conducted, and encourage case contacts to come forward for monitoring.
“We need to rethink the way to work with the community if we really want to stop this outbreak,” he said. “There is no magical solution unless we really work with communities.”
Vaccine collaboration announced
In other outbreak news, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced today that it will collaborate with Singapore-based Hilleman Laboratories to advance development of a Bundibugyo vaccine candidate that uses the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) platform. CEPI is providing $8.5 million in funding to Hilleman, which will manufacture vaccine doses for clinical trials.
The rVSV vaccine is one of three Bundibugyo vaccine candidates that CEPI is supporting. Developed in collaboration with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, it’s based on the same technology that was used to develop the Zaire Ebola vaccine. There are no licensed vaccines or treatments for Bundibugyo, which one of six known species of Ebola viruses.
“Drawing on the latest vaccine technology and our ongoing development work to update the manufacturing process for the Zaire ebolavirus vaccine, we’re racing to develop a Bundibugyo vaccine and make doses for clinical trials,” Hilleman CEO Raman Rao, MD, said in a press release.
