The ongoing Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached alarming proportions, with confirmed cases surpassing 9,000 and the death toll climbing past 4,300.
Medical teams are facing significant hurdles in controlling the outbreak, which has now expanded across seven provinces while spreading rapidly across several high-risk areas.
Medical personnel are particularly concerned by the high volume of fatalities taking place away from specialized care facilities.
Dr Catherine Swallwood, incident manager at the World Health Organization in the DR Congo says about of the total number of cases, about 60 per are community deaths.
“Now, over the past few weeks, about one-third of all new cases have still been community deaths. So that means we are not detecting cases while the patients are still alive,” she said.
Because a substantial proportion of infections remain undetected locally, the World Health Organization is pivoting its operations toward isolated regions and hard-to-reach health zones.
“It’s very difficult to be everywhere all the time. The strategy now is to really reach out to the communities that are hardest hit and bring our response to them,” said Swallwood.
“It is in those communities that people are sick; people are dying. That is where we need to reach out to them to set up services and the response.”
The outbreak involves the rare Bundibugyo strain, which carries an overall fatality rate of 48.3 percent. While human trials are currently in progress, no specific vaccine or medical treatment has received official approval to combat this particular strain.
