Latest: Confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have risen above 10,000 for the first time, to 10,060, with 4,887 deaths, according to the latest situation report from the country’s public health institute, reported by Reuters on Tuesday. The outbreak is now the second largest and second deadliest Ebola epidemic on record, behind only the 2014 to 2016 West African outbreak, and regional spread is widening: Kenya has announced nine cases in total since its first earlier this month, Nigeria last week became the fourth African country to report a case, and Uganda, declared Ebola free in August after 20 mostly imported cases, said on Sunday that citizens returning with a history of travel to Congo would be quarantined for 21 days. The Associated Press has reported that about 80 percent of recorded cases are being identified outside previously monitored contact groups, indicating that many chains of infection have not been traced.
The nurse was killed by protesters in Bafwasende, a rural town in Tshopo province, on Saturday while responding to an Ebola alert, UN News reported. A health worker was also severely injured in the attack and remains in hospital. Julien Harneis, the UN Senior Ebola Response Coordinator, said he strongly condemns the attack and called for a thorough investigation, urging communities to protect health workers and allow them to carry out their work safely. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed condolences and wrote that everyone working to protect communities from this deadly disease must be able to work in dignity and safety, and that healthcare must always be protected.
Reuters reported that the nurse worked at the town’s general hospital, treating patients and helping residents understand how to protect themselves, and that colleagues are now sheltering inside the hospital under police guard, afraid to go home, with soldiers briefly deployed to the area. Local health officials told Reuters that misinformation has fuelled attacks, with health workers in Tshopo accused of spreading an imaginary disease, and hospitals, vehicles and response workers targeted.
The outbreak behind the alert is the deadliest in the country’s history. More than 9,760 cases and some 4,727 deaths have been recorded in the DR Congo since the outbreak was declared on May 15, according to WHO figures, and it has reached eight provinces. The Bundibugyo virus strain has no approved vaccine. Uganda’s smaller outbreak was declared defeated in August, while France, Kenya and Nigeria have reported cases. In Nigeria, the first confirmed patient and her husband, both Swiss citizens, were medically evacuated to Switzerland on Monday, and Nigeria currently has no Ebola cases while it continues to monitor 52 contacts, WHO said.