Ebola continues to spread in Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo said on Friday that health experts were managing to contain the spread of an outbreak of deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever whose confirmed cases have risen to twenty-four. A senior health official said, however, that it was not yet possible to say the epidemic in Western Kasai province was under control. Analysis by mobile laboratories set up this week in the affected province found seven more samples that tested positive for Ebola, confirmed that the total number was indeed twenty-four. Only 53 of more than 400 suspected cases have so far been laboratory tested. At least 174 deaths have been linked to suspected Ebola cases in Western Kasai province since April. Ebola, which is fatal in between 50 and 90 percent of cases, is transmitted by contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons. Benoit Kebela, head of the government’s inter-ministry group tackling the outbreak, said efforts by Congolese authorities, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and medical relief agencies to halt the spread of the outbreak appeared to be making progress.

On 29 August more than thirty suspected cases were registered in a single day. The number of new suspected cases had since dropped dramatically, with the most recent recorded on Monday. Kebela said many more people could still be infected with Ebola in its incubation phase, and could also fall ill.

Several suspected cases were reported last week in Western Kasai’s provincial capital, Kananga, and in neighbouring Eastern Kasai, raising fears that the outbreak had spread. Kebela said laboratory tests had shown these cases were not Ebola. Health officials believe many suspected cases may be caused by other diseases, such as typhoid and Shigella dysentery, which have similar early symptoms. People began falling ill in April in the village of Kampungu, now considered the epicentre of the outbreak.

Ebola symptoms begin with fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, bleeding from orifices. Two severely ill patients were at an isolation centre in Kampungu run by the Belgian chapter of medical relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Three died there last weekend. MSF and the WHO have already sent tons of supplies to the area affected by the outbreak and dispatched teams of doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and Ebola experts to the field. Congolese authorities have launched a wide-reaching campaign to educate people about the risks of Ebola infection. “The main things are to identify suspected cases, isolate them and test them. That’s how we break the chain,” WHO spokeswoman Christiana Salvi told Reuters on Friday. Western Kasai is east of Kikwit, the site of a major Ebola outbreak in former Zaire in 1995, which killed 250 of 315 people infected.