Mourners gathered at an orphanage in the Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bunia to bury a six-month-old girl who died from Ebola.
With more than a thousand people dead from the ongoing outbreak in eastern Congo, officials have never seen an Ebola outbreak spread this fast.
“You have to imagine that this is a fire,” said Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu with the World Health Organization. “There’s something driving the fire in its heart, and it’s also expanding at the same time.”
Dr Thierno Balde, W.H.O. Incident Manager for Ebola Rresponse said,
“Let’s be very clear, this outbreak remains ahead of us and we are still in the phase of catching up.”
The outbreak, which was declared on May 15, is even more deadly than previous ones because the Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments.
The World Health Organization says the true number of infections could be two to four times higher than official figures. And African officials say there is a huge gap in the funding needed to stop the spread.
Jean Kaseya with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, “These are people dying. They are dying because we don’t have vaccines, we don’t have medicine, we don’t have funding.”
Another major challenge is the ongoing conflict in the region.
Ebola is highly contagious and is spread through bodily fluids. It kills by damaging the gut lining and liver, causing severe diarrhea and vomiting. Patients can lose over two gallons of fluid a day, leading to extreme dehydration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump Administration would not allow Ebola to enter the the United States.
“The State Department and other agencies represented here, the Centers for Disease Control, HHS and others are working very hard to contain this crisis to the countries where it’s currently located,” Rubio said.
The ministry Samaritan’s Purse is operating Ebola Treatment Centers in two locations in the Congo, including the epicenter, Bunia, and has admitted more than 300 patients and more than 200 have recovered and been discharged.
Officials are warning that 80 precent of new cases have emerged outside known chains of transmission, a sign the outbreak is spreading faster than health officials can track it, and faster than the 2013 outbreak that killed 11 thousand people.
