WHO says fatality rate in DR Congo Ebola outbreak below 25%

Ebola’s latest surge in the Democratic Republic of Congo is proving deadly, but early figures suggest it has so far killed a smaller share of patients than many previous outbreaks, according to a World Health Organization update.

Since officials declared the outbreak in the DRC in mid-May, the World Health Organization has logged more than 1,000 suspected and confirmed Ebola cases across the central African nation.

Of those, 10 deaths have been confirmed as caused by Ebola, while another 223 are suspected to have been linked to the virus, according to an update the WHO posted on X today that was dated 24 May.

In neighbouring Uganda, the update said one person has also been confirmed to have died from Ebola, while six other infections have been confirmed.

Without elaborating further, the WHO said the case fatality rate currently stands at 24.6% among suspected cases and 9.8% among confirmed cases.

Those figures are markedly below the toll seen in the previous 16 Ebola outbreaks recorded in the DRC since the virus was first identified there in 1976.

Most of those outbreaks were driven by the Zaire strain of Ebola, which typically carries a fatality rate of 60-90% and remains the only variant with vaccines available.

The current outbreak is being driven instead by the rarer Bundibugyo strain, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments.

In the two earlier DRC outbreaks involving that strain, in 2007 and 2012, case fatality rates ranged from roughly 30 to 50%.

Still, the case fatality rate often shifts over the course of an outbreak and can fall as authorities identify infections more quickly and patients receive treatment sooner, WHO emergency alert and response director Abdi Rahman Mahamud said last week.

“Early referral and early care saves lives,” he told reporters.

Ciarán Donnelly, senior vice president for crisis response at the International Rescue Committee, said it was “hard to overstate the sense of alarm we’re feeling” over the outbreak.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime, he said three issues in particular were driving that concern.

First, he said, the virus has already spread widely and appears to have gone undetected for “at least two months”, with some reports suggesting “up to four months,” leaving the response struggling to catch up from the outset.

Second, he said conflict in eastern DRC, where different armed groups and the government control different areas, is making an already difficult response even harder and complicating efforts to contain transmission.

Third, he said, eastern Congo’s health system, along with broader humanitarian capacity, has been badly weakened by the effect of global cuts to humanitarian funding over the past year.

“So right at the very moment in which the health system and humanitarian actors need to be scaling up we are actually at our lowest levels of funding for several years.”

Uganda shuts DR Congo border: health ministry

Uganda has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo as it moves to contain the Ebola outbreak affecting its neighbour, the health ministry said.

The east African country has recorded seven cases of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola since the outbreak was identified in the DRC on 15 May.

“Uganda is temporarily closing the border with the DRC with immediate effect,” health ministry permanent secretary Diana Atwine told reporters.

“The only exceptions are for authorised Ebola response teams, humanitarian operations, food and cargo transportation, and security under strict health screening and monitoring protocols,” she said.

Ms Atwine also announced a 21-day quarantine for anyone arriving from the DRC, to be overseen by the Ministry of Health and district surveillance teams, along with routine checks for pupils at schools near the border.