The World Health Organization said Tuesday it’s worried that an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is about to spread further within that country.
Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general, said in a press conference Tuesday that troubling factors in the region “may be coming together over the next weeks to months to create a potential perfect storm.”
The area is plagued with violence, people have been actively running away from health workers who try to vaccinate and treat them, and politicians in the North Kivu province have been spreading conspiracy theories that the government is causing Ebola to spread.
“We can see this situation deteriorating very quickly,” Salama said.
Healthcare workers are using an experimental vaccine on patients, but they face difficult circumstances as they try to reach those who may have been infected. The latest outbreak is in a war-torn region that borders Uganda and Rwanda.
Roughly 1 million people who live in the area have been displaced and are still on the move, which makes it difficult for medics to vaccinate people and then monitor them for three weeks, an effective strategy they took earlier this year in another region of the Congo.
Though 11,700 people have received the vaccine, at least 150 people are infected and 100 people have died. Unsafe burials in which people touch infected bodies leads to continued spread of Ebola, and at least one case has been detected in a village in Uganda.
Salama called the outbreak “the most difficult context” health officials faced in terms of responding to Ebola.
Ebola can be deadly when it isn’t treated, causing diarrhea, bleeding on the body and damage to the immune system and organs. Various treatments are being tested, but for the most part patient who is infected receives an IV and is monitored for electrolyte balance and adequate oxygen.
