PRETORIA, August 26. /TASS/. The current Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could become the largest ever recorded, The Washington Post reported, citing specialists working in Congolese provinces affected by the virus.
"The situation looks bad, and it is worsening," said Alice Ribes, the Congo-based Ebola lead for the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization. "It’s spreading very, very fast," she noted.
Ribes said that much of the population in eastern DR Congo was not following the necessary precautions against the virus. This also applies to Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province and the epicenter of the current outbreak. While the virus is spreading, "life is continuing as if nothing is happening," she noted.
"You have massive crowds," Ribes said. "Massive weddings, big parties. Churches that are completely full." Most people on the front lines of the Ebola response believe that the current "figures are underestimated," she added.
Another challenge hindering efforts to fight Ebola is the lack of funding in the DRC. Medical personnel and aid organizations say their response capacity has been hampered by sweeping cuts in assistance to the DRC and the World Health Organization by the United States and other Western countries, the newspaper said. Especially in the early stages of the outbreak, they lacked staff, surveillance systems and emergency supplies to quickly detect infections or contain the virus.
Specialists say the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spreading faster than the one that began in West Africa in 2014 and killed 11,000 people, regarded as the largest in Africa’s history. According to the Congolese Health Ministry, 5,584 Ebola cases and 2,680 deaths have been recorded so far. The Washington Post said specialists working in virus-affected areas of the DRC believe these figures probably represent only a fraction of the total number of infections and deaths.
The outbreak, which began in the DRC and Uganda on May 15, has already become the second-deadliest ever recorded. Ebola cases have now been registered in six Congolese provinces. Ugandan authorities declared the outbreak in their country over on July 28.