The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had the highest number of confirmed cases in the first month of any Ebola outbreak in Africa, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official told a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
Authorities have confirmed more than 1,000 cases and 267 deaths as of Monday from the current outbreak of the comparatively rare Bundibugyo Ebolavirus.
“This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of the Ebola disease outbreak in Africa,” Abdirahman Mahmoud, director of WHO’s health emergency alert and response operations, said in a statement. Press release.
WHO formally confirmed the outbreak on May 15, but experts believe it was likely spreading for weeks or months before that.
Dozens of cases confirmed in eastern Congo displacement camps
“The response needs to be expanded to keep pace with the growing outbreak – that is beginning to happen,” WHO’s Mahmoud said after returning from a visit to the Bunya treatment center at the epicenter of the outbreak last week.
Cases have now been confirmed in at least three of the crowded displacement camps in war-torn eastern Congo.
Abdoulaye Won of the International Organization for Migration said at the same Geneva briefing on Tuesday that 25 cases had been confirmed in the camps, including 14 deaths.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ebola outbreaks have occurred more than 20 times across Africa since the 1970s.
The deadliest pair were in West Africa, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, which killed 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016, and began in Congo in 2018 with 2,229 recorded deaths.
Kenya ordered to stop construction of US-backed Ebola quarantine facility
Meanwhile, Kenyan Health Minister Aiden Duale assured a Kenyan court on Tuesday that he has ordered the immediate halt to the construction of a US-backed Ebola quarantine facility at an airport.
Duell was found guilty of contempt of court on Monday for failing to comply with previous orders to suspend construction pending an assessment by the judiciary.
The tent facility in the central city of Nanyuki was supposed to serve as a treatment center for US citizens amid the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo.
Plans to build it, which were first announced in May, led to sometimes violent protests, with a total of three people killed in the surrounding area.
What else do we know about the stalled Kenya plans?
After receiving assurances from the minister, Justice Patricia Nyandi Mande acquitted Duale without any punishment, but warned him against further disobedience.
“I have directed the immediate and complete cessation of any intended construction, site preparation, or related activities related to the Laikipia Air Base Facility until the hearing and determination of the original petition or further order of this court,” Duale said during the sentencing hearing Tuesday.
The facility was being constructed in LAikipiya Air Base, about 200 kilometers(125 miles) from the capital, Nairobi, with about 50 isolation beds. American medical staff were expected to manage it.
The plans prompted considerable domestic reaction and opposition. Kenya has never recorded any cases of Ebola and there was public concern about bringing patients to its territory – even airlifting them directly to a safe medical facility.
Rights groups also successfully petitioned the court, stating that the facility was being constructed in secret and without consultation. The government initially ignored orders to halt construction pending an investigation.
Flight tracking data, satellite imagery and U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity pointed to preparations continuing at the site despite the initial court order.
The only US citizen to be infected with Ebola so far in the current outbreak – a doctor working as a medical missionary at the epicenter of the outbreak in eastern DRC – was flown to Germany for treatment at a specialist facility in Berlin.
Kenya does not border Congo but lies directly east of Uganda, bordering the epicenter of the earthquake in Ituri province in eastern DRC.
Edited by: Wesley Rahn
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