Bond.az -- The World Health Organization has officially declared the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
The agency issued the warning on Sunday, stating that a rare virus strain with no approved vaccine or treatment may already be spreading more widely than detected.
The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus strain, met the threshold for the WHO’s highest level of alarm due to cross-border transmission, unexplained clusters of deaths, and major uncertainty regarding the scale of the epidemic.
The declaration follows the formal confirmation of Ebola cases in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala and in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital of approximately 20 million people.
The geographic expansion confirms that the virus has spread well beyond the remote mining region where it was first identified.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus characterized the situation as extraordinary, citing the absolute absence of approved Bundibugyo-specific vaccines or therapeutics, persistent security issues in eastern Congo, and preliminary evidence suggesting the outbreak is significantly larger than official case counts.
As of May 16, Congo had recorded eight laboratory-confirmed cases, 336 suspected infections, and 87 suspected deaths in Ituri province, according to data from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Concurrently, Uganda has confirmed two cases in Kampala among travelers arriving from Congo, including one fatality. At least four healthcare workers have also died under circumstances consistent with viral hemorrhagic fever.
The WHO urged against border closures or the imposition of travel and trade restrictions, stating that such measures are ineffective and risk driving population movement through unmonitored crossings.
Instead, the agency called for urgent clinical trials of experimental vaccines and therapeutics.
Health officials are currently evaluating several potential treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and Gilead Sciences Inc.’s antiviral drug remdesivir, though none are approved specifically for Bundibugyo infections.
Additionally, experimental vaccine candidates developed by Moderna Inc. and Oxford University are presently under regulatory review.
