More than 5,000 people have died in Congo’s Ebola outbreak, making it the second deadliest in history. The toll stands at 5,026 deaths among 10,351 infected people, a fatality rate of nearly one in two. Only the 2014 to 2016 epidemic in West Africa, which killed about 11,000, was worse.
The dead are Black Africans, in a country where the outbreak has run since mid-May. For Congolese families in North America, and for readers across the diaspora with relatives in Ituri, North Kivu or Kinshasa, the numbers are not distant.
“It is a very tragic milestone because it is just not a number,” Dr. Patrick Otim, a World Health Organization program manager, said. “It is families and communities that have been devastated.”
The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, and as reported there is no known vaccine or treatment for it. It was declared in mid-May. It has since reached 67 of Congo’s 178 health zones across eight of its 26 provinces, with 50 of those zones still reporting active cases. Ituri and North Kivu in the east account for 9,782 of the confirmed cases and 4,792 of the deaths. So far 2,788 people have recovered.
Outrunning the response
About 80% of new cases are appearing outside chains of contacts that health workers were already monitoring, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means most new infections come from transmission that officials did not see coming. A third of deaths happened outside treatment centers, before the person could be tested.
Armed conflict in the east limits where health workers can go. In some places, community distrust has led to attacks on health workers and facilities. Health workers have also gone on strike over wages they say have gone unpaid for more than four months.
The virus has crossed borders. In October, Kenya confirmed eight cases and two deaths. Uganda has confirmed cases. Nigeria confirmed one case, and that patient was evacuated to Switzerland. The WHO has said the outbreak will likely pass the West Africa epidemic in total deaths.
Measured from the first detected case, responders say this outbreak has spread about three times faster than the 2014 to 2016 epidemic did.
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