NAIROBI — More than 2,000 people have died of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in a fast-moving outbreak health authorities believe began months earlier than officially declared.
Government data shows 2,011 deaths and 4,381 confirmed cases, according to the Associated Press.
The current Ebola outbreak, declared on May 15, is now the second-largest outbreak on record. It trails only the West Africa outbreak that began in 2014, which killed 11,325 people and is considered the worst in the history of the disease. The current outbreak is also spreading “substantially faster,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rapid acceleration of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus — which has no vaccine — has been amplified by several factors, including that the diagnostics tests commonly used in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo were not geared to detect type of Ebola, allowing it to spread unchecked. The outbreak has also occurred in a conflict zone with limited access for aid workers, and surveillance systems for contact tracing of those affected are weak.
On Monday, World Health Organization officials said the outbreak probably started in February, months before it was declared. “We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us,” Mohamed Yakub Janabi, WHO regional director for Africa, said at a news conference.
This is the 17th Ebola outbreak to be recorded in Congo, and it comes against the backdrop of sweeping cuts by the Trump administration and other Western nations to agencies that supported systems in Congo, which experts say probably would have identified the virus earlier.
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