DR Congo records over 6,000 confirmed Ebola cases

Kinshasa, Aug 31 (IANS) Confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have surpassed 6,000, with nearly 3,000 deaths, according to the latest figures released Monday.

Local authorities reported that as of Saturday, the DRC had recorded 6,041 confirmed cases across six provinces, including 2,911 deaths, bringing the overall case fatality rate to 48.2 per cent. A total of 1,366 patients have recovered.

The outbreak has now affected 60 health zones in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele and Tshopo, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The current outbreak, declared in May, has since become the country’s largest and deadliest Ebola epidemic on record and the second-largest globally, behind the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa.

Last week, DRC launched Ebola vaccination with the Ervebo vaccine under a compassionate-use framework in the northeastern province of Tshopo, as the country steps up efforts to contain the ongoing Bundibugyo ebolavirus outbreak.

DRC health minister Roger Kamba officially launched the vaccination in Kisangani, capital of Tshopo Province, with health care and frontline workers among the first groups to receive the vaccine. “We have decided to use the Ervebo vaccine to protect first those who are on the front line, therefore our health care providers, but also people who have been in contact with patients,” Kamba said.

More than 50,000 doses of Ervebo have been received, Kamba said, quoted by the DRC official news agency ACP.

The health ministry said on the social media platform X that the launch was an important step in the Ebola response, saying the vaccination would reinforce existing measures aimed at protecting communities, breaking chains of transmission and containing the spread of the disease.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) also confirmed at a press briefing Thursday that preventive vaccination had begun in Kisangani.

Placide Mbala Kingebeni, Africa CDC’s Director for Research, Clinical Trials and Innovation, told the briefing that the vaccine was being deployed among health care and frontline workers under a compassionate-use framework, which is expected to cover 14 selected health zones in Tshopo, Bas-Uele and Haut-Uele, three provinces more recently affected by the outbreak.

Data will be collected during the rollout to assess the vaccine’s potential effectiveness against the virus responsible for the current outbreak, he said.

–IANS

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