WHO Africa head warns against underestimating risk of Ebola spread

By Emma Farge

GENEVA, May 22 (Reuters) – It would be a mistake to underestimate the risk posed by the Ebola outbreak, the WHO regional director for Africa said on Friday, warning that just one case ​could spread the virus beyond the Democratic Republic of Congo and ‌Uganda.

The outbreak has resulted in 160 suspected deaths out of 670 suspected cases, and 61 of the cases have been confirmed, according to DRC health ministry data published on Thursday. Two cases have also been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda.

“It would be a big mistake to ‌underestimate ​it, especially with a virus with this strain, ⁠Bundibugyo, (for) which we don’t have ⁠the vaccine,” Mohamed Yakub Janabi said in an interview at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

“So I would really encourage everyone, let’s help each other, we can bring this thing into control,” he said.

He added that the outbreak of ​Ebola in Congo has had relatively little global attention compared with this month’s hantavirus outbreak, which affected cruise ship passengers from 23 countries including major ⁠powers.

“You just need one contact case to ⁠put all of us at risk, so my wish and ​prayer is that we should give (Ebola) the attention it deserves,” he said.

Ebola is an ​often-fatal virus that causes fever, body aches, vomiting and diarrhoea. It ‌spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, contaminated materials or people who have died from the disease.

STILL ASSESSING SCALE OF OUTBREAK

Janabi declined to comment on the expected duration and scale of the current outbreak, saying ⁠experts on the ground were in the process of assessing this.

The “hyperdynamic movement of the people” made it hard to gauge the situation, he said, adding that efforts to ⁠scale up testing, infection ‌prevention measures and community engagement were underway.

A dispute over ⁠a victim’s body that led to the burning of ​Ebola treatment ‌tents pointed to the importance of building trust, he ​said.

“We are trying ⁠to fight both frontiers,” he said, referring to the virus itself and misinformation about the illness circulating within the local population.

Another challenge was that epidemiologists have yet to find the initial person infected, he added, saying this was important for identifying and isolating the initial web of contacts.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Editing by Friederike ​Heine and Alex Richardson)