DRC’s fast-growing Ebola outbreak spreads to sixth province

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a sixth province, officials have said, a day after the head of the World Health Organization said the outbreak was on track to surpass the deadliest in history, which erupted more than a decade ago and killed more than 11,000 people.Jean Kaseya, the director general of Africa CDC, said a death had been recorded in the previously unaffected Bas-Uele province. Kaseya said the man had travelled from Isiro, in Haut-Uele province, to Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, where he died.There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current outbreak, which has killed more than 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures.The death toll has been reached almost three times faster than in the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in west Africa, the worst in history. On Wednesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said the new outbreak could eclipse that one. Six of DRC’s 26 provinces have now been affected.The outbreak is unfolding amid strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel groups, anger from long-traumatised communities, and misinformation asserting that Ebola is not real.Health workers at the Nizi treatment centre in Ituri province, one of the worst affected in the area, went on strike on Thursday, leading to the temporary closure of the centre, after they said they had not been paid for three months.The true scope of the outbreak remains unknown. It was declared on 15 May but the WHO now says sequencing shows it began months earlier, in February.Health authorities have said between 60% and 70% of new cases are recorded outside contacts being monitored, and that the disease is spreading at an alarming rate.Dr Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the WHO regional director for Africa, said this week: “We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us.”Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted from body fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and from contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri.