The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) says it is too early to declare the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) under control.“We’re still early to say that we’re controlling the whole outbreak,” Wessam Mankoula, an Africa CDC official, told an online news conference, in spite of signs of stabilisation in recent weeks.
According to the latest government situation report published on Thursday, the DRC had recorded 6,250 confirmed cases and 3,039 deaths as of Sept. 1, with a case fatality rate of 48.6 per cent.
The report said 1,439 patients had recovered, while the outbreak had affected 60 health zones across six provinces since its declaration in May.
Four health zones had interrupted transmission after reporting no new cases for more than 42 days, while another five had recorded no new cases for between 21 and 42 days.
Transmission, however, remained active in 51 health zones, Mankoula said, indicating that the outbreak continued to pose a significant public health threat across affected communities.
“For the last two weeks, we are seeing a decline in the number of cases,” Mankoula said, cautioning that “it’s very early to say we have sustained decline in this outbreak.”
Mankoula also warned that more than 60 per cent of deaths recorded over the past seven days occurred in communities, pointing to delays in detection and challenges in accessing medical care.
The current outbreak, declared in May, has become the country’s largest and deadliest Ebola epidemic on record and the second-largest globally, behind the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa.
