Ebola deaths in Congo’s latest outbreak are expected to exceed 1,000 later on Friday, the World Health Organization announced, as attacks continue on health workers trying to contain the virus’s spread.
The death toll stood at 994 on Friday but was expected to surpass 1,000 when Congo’s health ministry releases its daily figures later in the day.
The outbreak that was declared in eastern Congo in August is already the second deadliest in history. The 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa’s Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia brought worldwide attention as it killed more than 11,000 people. Efforts to control this new outbreak have been hampered by the volatile security situation and deep community mistrust.
Ebola treatment centers have come under repeated attack, and a Cameroonian epidemiologist working with WHO was killed last month during an assault on a hospital in Butembo city at the outbreak’s epicenter. Another attack on Thursday in Butembo was repelled, said Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief.
Insecurity has become a “major impediment,” Ryan told reporters in Geneva, saying 119 separate attacks had been recorded since January. Dozens of rebel groups operate in the region, and community rejection of health workers has been driven in part by political rivalries, he said.
WHO has maintained that this Ebola outbreak is geographically contained even as the number of cases rises in a dense, highly mobile population near the border with Uganda and Rwanda.
