Ebola outbreak not yet global emergency, WHO says
NAIROBI — The World Health Organization said Friday that criteria had not yet been met to declare a public health emergency of international concern in Congo, where three cases of Ebola have now been confirmed in an urban area.
The outbreak in Congo is the most serious since an epidemic in West Africa outpaced an international response between 2014 and 2016, infecting more than 28,000 and killing more than 11,000.
“This situation can yet be brought under control,” Robert Steffen, the chair of the WHO’s emergency committee, said at an emergency meeting of experts called by the WHO in Geneva. But the international community must sustain a “vigorous response” to prevent a sharp deterioration, he added.
Eleven cases of the Ebola virus were confirmed in northwest Congo on Friday, including two more in the bustling river port of Mbandaka, where health officials say a growing outbreak could see an “explosive increase.” The first urban case was confirmed in the city of more than 1 million on Thursday, nine days after the outbreak was officially declared. A total of 14 cases have now been confirmed, according to the Congo’s Ministry of Health.
The WHO was accused of responding slowly in the early days of the 2014-16 epidemic, and the organization has taken pains to ensure it is acting more quickly — and is seen as doing so — this time.
The WHO has put Congo’s nine bordering countries on high alert, and the International Organization for Migration is aiding the Congolese government in deploying teams of epidemiologists and other medical staff to 16 border crossings.
Though only 25 people have died so far from suspected Ebola cases, health officials are worried that the virus has had ample time to spread into remote and hard-to-reach areas of the rain forest that densely covers much of the affected region.
The WHO is sending 7,540 doses of an experimental vaccine, more than half of which have already arrived in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. The vaccine, yet unlicensed, has been cleared for “compassionate use” by the WHO, and has proven effective in trials.
The vaccine will be issued starting Sunday to those identified as having been in contact with suspected or confirmed cases to try to create “rings” of immunity.
Ebola isn’t the most contagious of diseases, but it is unusually fatal. Once contracted, it disables parts of the immune system, resulting in fever, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and ultimately organ failures and internal bleeding. Because it can take a week or longer before symptoms are noticeable, a person can travel long distances and contact many others by the time they are diagnosed.
The WHO has so far refrained from calling on travel or trade restrictions in the affected area.