Africa-Press – Rwanda. The African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, part of the African Union, has warned that ten African countries are at risk of an Ebola virus outbreak, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the current epicenter of the outbreak, and Uganda, which has also reported new cases of the virus.
The head of the Centre, Jean Kaseya, explained during a press conference in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, that the countries threatened by the spread of the outbreak are: South Sudan, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, the Republic of Congo, Burundi, Angola, the Central African Republic, and Zambia, noting that most of them border the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Uganda.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the number of suspected Ebola virus cases has risen to 867, while the death toll has reached 204, according to the latest figures announced by the Congolese Ministry of Health on Saturday evening.
The World Health Organization raised the health alert level in the country to “very high” on Friday, May 22, while neighboring countries, including Rwanda and Uganda, imposed travel restrictions to and from Congolese territory. This is the seventeenth outbreak of the Ebola virus in the country and the second-largest known outbreak globally in terms of the number of cases after the West Africa epidemic.
Jean Kaseya stated that the scale of the spread has been significant since the initial announcement of the outbreak, emphasizing that “urgent and coordinated response has become a pressing necessity.” In Uganda, the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday the registration of three new confirmed cases, bringing the total number of cases to five.
Health authorities clarified that among the infected is a Ugandan driver who transported the first confirmed case in the country, in addition to a healthcare worker who was infected while treating the first patient, while the third case involves a Congolese woman who arrived in Uganda via a flight.
Health ministries in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan have also adopted a joint roadmap to enhance surveillance and early warning systems across borders, tighten monitoring at entry points, and track the movement of travelers, alongside coordinating crisis management efforts at the regional level.
The African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that the current response requires funding of $319 million, particularly to support containment efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and the at-risk countries, confirming that funding commitments received so far amount to $230 million.
The Ebola virus is known to cause fatal hemorrhagic fever and has claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past five decades. Although the virus is less contagious than COVID-19 or measles, the absence of a vaccine or approved treatment for the “Bundibugyo” strain responsible for the current outbreak complicates containment efforts, making preventive measures and early detection of cases the primary means to combat its spread.
