Kinshasa, Oct 3 (IANS): Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said that the Ebola outbreak has eased in some areas, with no new cases reported in more health zones for weeks, despite the total death toll having surpassed 4,000.
“We are no longer talking about outbreaks at the provincial level, but outbreaks concentrated in individual health zones,” Health Minister Roger Kamba told a press briefing in Kinshasa on Friday (local time).
Data released Friday showed that the outbreak has claimed 4,018 lives among 8,300 confirmed cases across seven provinces, with an overall case fatality rate of 48.4 per cent. A total of 2,162 patients have recovered.
Of the 63 health zones affected across seven provinces since the outbreak began, 12 have reported no new cases for 42 days, Kamba said.
“The situation remains highly variable, but we can see that the number of health zones reporting cases has decreased,” he said.
Despite signs of localised improvement in the DRC’s Ebola outbreak situation, international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned Thursday that the actual toll was likely higher than officially reported due to gaps in disease surveillance and case detection.
The Ebola outbreak declared in May has become the largest and deadliest ever recorded in the DRC and the second-largest Ebola outbreak worldwide, after the 2014-2016 one in West Africa.
Meanwhile, the United Nations warned that escalating violence in eastern DRC is further hampering the Ebola response, after a key transit centre for suspected patients was destroyed by fire at the Kigonze displacement camp in Ituri province.
The outbreak, declared in May, is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak globally, after the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic.
