The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, out of more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases.
Its chief fears insecurity in the eastern DRC, which has been plagued for three decades by conflict involving a litany of armed groups, is making it extremely difficult to contain the outbreak.
“Eastern DRC now faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict with the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province outpacing the response,” the UN agency’s head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
No vaccine or treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is behind the DRC’s 17th recorded outbreak of the disease.
State services in rural Ituri province, where it was first detected, have been largely absent for decades.
In Rwampara, one of the epicentres of the outbreak, AFP saw a symptomatic woman being brought to hospital on a motorbike, squeezed between her sister and the driver.
A health worker recorded a high fever and bleeding from her nose, a common symptom of Ebola, which causes a haemorrhagic fever.
He rushed to spray chlorine on the bike and driver, who wore a surgical mask but little else to protect him against a virus that spreads through bodily fluids.
With no ambulances available, “people make do with motorbikes”, the health worker, Dieudonne Sezabo, told AFP.
The hospital has set up a temporary isolation centre but is still awaiting crucial equipment deliveries.
