The World Health Organization has confirmed that one person among a large group of people infected with hemorrhagic fever in a remote forested part of the Democratic Republic of Congo has tested positive for the Ebola virus.
It is the first case in the country since 2014 and has raised alarms about the possibility of a new epidemic. The person confirmed as having an Ebola infection has died. Local media in Congo have reported additional deaths of patients with symptoms of the virus, but Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, said health officials are still working to determine whether there is any link to the deadly virus.
Details of the extent of the outbreak aren’t clear.
According to a statement from Congo’s health ministry, the Ebola infection was confirmed from tests on nine people April 22 in the health zone of Likati, in the province of Bas-Uele in northeast Congo. It also noted that three people have died of fever, but the status of the laboratory testing for Ebola for those victims was unclear.
“Our country must confront an outbreak of the Ebola virus that constitutes a public health crisis of international significance,” the ministry said.
One medical humanitarian organization, Alima, which works in Africa, said it is sending additional doctors, nurses, logisticians, epidemiologists and water, sanitation and hygiene experts to the region.
“The population lives in a remote area where access to health care is extremely limited,” Alima said in a tweet.
The WHO also said it and its partners are supporting Congo in its response.
That may help health officials keep the outbreak under control. Congo has had Ebola outbreaks in the past in rural areas, but the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was so devastating because it spread quickly in heavily populated urban areas.
The DRC was not one of the main three African countries hit by the 2014 epidemic, but the toll on the country was significant. The WHO confirmed 66 cases with 49 deaths. Worldwide, more than 28,600 people were infected and 11,300 died. The epicenter of the crisis – Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – have all been Ebola-free since at least June of last year.
That outbreak was a wake-up call for global public health officials whose response has been widely criticized for being slow and disorganized. Many new measures have been set up to respond to future epidemics, such as better communication systems and quarantine procedures, but there’s still much more that is needed.
A review on the world’s pandemic readiness published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year said that an investment of at least $4.5 billion is needed each year for improving detection and response tools. The paper, funded by philanthropic and academic groups, including the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Ford Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, had a sobering prediction: that at least one pandemic event will almost certainly occur in the next 100 years and that there is a 20 percent chance of four or more.