Image Source: Vaccine Nation
Africa – Board Member of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Dr Perseverance Chikide, has warned that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be the worst the country has faced, as the disease continues to spread beyond its original hotspots.
More than 7,000 cases and roughly 3,500 deaths have been recorded since the outbreak began. Transmission is slowing in some of the hardest-hit areas, but new clusters have now emerged in a seventh province, South Ubangi, which had no prior history of the disease.
“If you look at the numbers themselves, how many cases and deaths we have seen in a three to four-month period, it is quite a lot compared to what it has been in the past. So there is reason to worry, there is reason to increase our response, our teams on the ground during this outbreak,” Chikide said.
Fragile Health System Compounds Crisis
Chikide pointed to the fragile state of the DRC’s health system, worn down by years of conflict and displacement, as a key reason containment efforts have struggled to hold once cases move into new zones. He said MSF has to do more in the DRC than it would in an outbreak elsewhere, because the country’s weaker systems and infrastructure are exposed as soon as the disease starts spreading.
He said the country’s history of instability leaves fewer resources and weaker infrastructure to draw on when an outbreak spreads, exposing existing gaps in surveillance and treatment capacity. That gap, he said, makes it harder to hold the line once a new cluster appears in a province that wasn’t prepared for it.
“If you’re in a place like the DRC, which has been plagued over the years with issues to do with wars, effects of displacement, effects of a weaker health system, it also means that generally you’re going to have a weaker response towards an outbreak such as this one, because it then exposes some of these cracks,” Chikide said.
New Provinces Pose Greatest Risk
For Chikide, the spread into fresh territory outweighs the case count in existing hotspots, where transmission appears to be stabilising. He said MSF’s resources have been concentrated in the areas where the outbreak first took hold, but that same focus leaves neighbouring provinces exposed once cases begin to surface there.
He called for more specialists and international support to help contain the outbreak before it reaches other areas with no prior experience of the disease. Chikide said rapid response teams need to be on the ground within days of a new cluster emerging, so containment efforts can start before the spread outpaces the response.
“I think the latter becomes my biggest worry. We are now seeing sort of a steady state in the areas where it started, but now having newer cases show up in other areas, that’s a big worry, something that we really need a lot of support to come in, a lot of specialists and a lot of other organisations to come in and start to help us stop the spread,” Chikide said.
