WHO: DR Congo Ebola outbreak sets record for first-month cases

A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official told a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the highest number of confirmed cases in its first month of any Ebola outbreak in Africa. As of Monday, officials have confirmed more than 1,000 cases and 267 deaths from the current outbreak caused by the relatively rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus.

"This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa," said Abdirahman Mahamud, WHO's director of health emergency alert and response operations. The WHO formally confirmed the outbreak on May 15, but experts believe it had been circulating for weeks or months prior.

Dozens of cases have been confirmed at displacement camps in eastern Congo. Abdoulaye Wone of the International Organization for Migration said at the same briefing that 25 cases had been confirmed at the camps, including 14 deaths. Since the 1970s, more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have occurred in Africa. The deadliest were in West Africa (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia) from 2014-2016 with 11,000 deaths and in Congo starting in 2018 with 2,229 recorded deaths.

Meanwhile, Kenya's Health Minister Aden Duale assured a Kenyan court on Tuesday that he had ordered an immediate halt to the construction of a US-backed Ebola quarantine facility at an air base. Duale had been found in contempt of court on Monday for failing to observe previous orders to suspend construction pending judicial evaluation. The tented facility in the central town of Nanyuki was intended to serve as a treatment center for US nationals should any contract Ebola amid the DRC outbreak. The plans prompted sometimes violent protests, with three people killed.

Justice Patricia Nyaundi Mande discharged Duale with no further punishment after receiving his assurance but warned him against further disobedience. The facility was being built at the Laikipia Air Base, about 200 kilometers from Nairobi, with some 50 isolation beds. US medical staff were expected to manage it. Kenya has never recorded an Ebola case, and there was public concern about bringing patients onto its territory. Rights groups also petitioned the court, saying the facility was being constructed secretly without consultations. The government initially disregarded orders to pause construction. Flight tracking data, satellite imagery, and US officials speaking anonymously indicated continued preparations despite the initial court order. The sole US citizen to have contracted Ebola so far in the current outbreak — a doctor working as a medical missionary in eastern DRC — was flown to Germany for treatment at a specialist facility in Berlin. Kenya does not border Congo but is situated east of Uganda, which borders the epicenter in Ituri province in eastern DRC.