Recommended
The Ebola outbreak shaking the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could be up to three times larger than the official figure of 5,208 confirmed cases, the African Union (AU) public health agency warned on Thursday, indicating that they are only detecting between 30% and 40% of actual infections.
- TAMBIÉN LEE: Sin vacuna ni cura: Cómo se contagia y cuáles son los síntomas letales del ébola que encienden las alarmas
“We estimate that only between 30% and 40% of actual cases are being detected. Models from the DRC analysis team along with Imperial College evaluate that the true size of the outbreak could be three times larger in the number of confirmed cases,” said Yap Boum, head of Emergency Preparedness and Response at Africa CDC.
During their weekly virtual press conference, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) reported that less than 10% of cases come from known contacts and less than 40% have a clear epidemiological link to a confirmed case.
Boum explained that the lack of detection is largely due to the fact that the outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, whose symptoms are milder than those of the Zaire variant and lack such obvious severe hemorrhagic symptoms, which reduces the perception of severity in the population and delays seeking medical attention.
As a result, at least 97% of recent deaths are occurring in the community or in general health centers that lack proper isolation and infection prevention protocols.
On the epidemiological map, the organization highlighted the absence of active transmission for more than 42 days in three health zones, while provinces such as Ituri (epicenter of the outbreak), North Kivu, and South Kivu have not reported cases in the last 79 days. The transmission also hits Haut-Uélé (east) and Tshopo (central-north).
However, Africa CDC confirmed two cases in the town of Buta, in the northern province of Bas-Uélé, an area very close to the border with the Central African Republic (CAR), where mobile laboratories and cross-border surveillance mechanisms have already been deployed to prevent the regional spread of the virus.
The DRC government raised the death toll on Thursday to 2,476 for the Ebola outbreak declared in the east of the country last May 15, which is already registered as the second deadliest in history and the largest in terms of infections in this country.
This epidemic surpassed the one that also occurred in the same Congolese region between 2018 and 2020, but it is still far from the most serious one recorded to date, which caused 11,000 deaths and 28,000 infections in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. EFE
[Publicidad]