Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak is spreading at
its fastest rate yet, eight months after it was first detected, the
World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
Each
of the past two weeks has registered a record number of new cases,
marking a sharp setback for efforts to respond to the second biggest
outbreak ever, as militia violence and community resistance have impeded
access to affected areas.
Less than three weeks ago,
the WHO said the outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever was largely
contained and could be stopped by September, noting that weekly case
numbers had halved from earlier in the year to about 25.
But
the number of cases hit a record 57 the following week, and then jumped
to 72 last week, said WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier.
Previous spikes of around 50 cases per week were documented in late January and mid-November.
More
alarmingly, about three-quarters of Ebola deaths last week occurred
outside of treatment centers, according to Congo health ministry data,
meaning there is a much greater chance they transmitted the virus to
those around them.
“People are becoming infected without access to response measures,” Lindmeier told Reuters.
The current outbreak is believed to have killed 676 people and infected 406 others. Another 331 patients have recovered.
In
the past two months, five Ebola centers have been attacked, some by
armed militiamen. That led French medical charity Medecins Sans
Frontieres (MSF) to suspend its activities in two of the most affected
areas.
Another challenge has been a mistrust of first
responders. A survey conducted last September by medical journal The
Lancet found that a quarter of people sampled in two Ebola hotspots did
not believe the disease was real.
Lindmeier said new
approaches to community outreach were showing signs of progress and that
some previously hostile local residents had recently agreed to grant
health workers access.
One treatment centre that closed in February after being torched by unknown assailants reopened last week.
More
than 11,000 people died in West Africa’s 2013-16 Ebola outbreak. Since
then, health authorities have worked to speed up their responses and
deployed an experimental vaccine and treatments, both of which have been
considered effective.
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