DR Congo's fastest-growing ebola outbreak spreads to sixth province

A day after World Health Organization said the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo was on track to surpass the deadliest in history, officials said it has spread to a sixth province.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday said a man who had travelled from a neighbouring region has died in the previously unaffected Bas-Uele province.

He was a motorcycle-taxi driver who had sought treatment at several hospitals before he passed away in Buta, and tested positive for the haemorrhagic virus posthumously.

His colleagues then tried to forcibly take his body, prompting police intervention and concerns that more people may have been exposed to the illness.

The death toll of 2,100 people so far in the outbreak in eastern Congo, has been reached almost three times faster than in the 2014 to 2016 epidemic in West Africa.

This was the worst ever recorded with over 11,000 deaths, but the WHO says the current outbreak is on track to surpass it.

It is unfolding against the backdrop of some of the most challenging conditions imaginable.

Some unpaid health workers are striking, there are threats by rebel groups, anger from long-traumatised communities, and misinformation asserting that Ebola isn’t real.

Bas-Uele is a vast region in north-eastern Congo that borders the Central African Republic, where there is recurring armed violence that has forced thousands to flee and take refuge in the province.

Access can be difficult due to bad and poorly connected roads as well as limited communication networks, and there are frequent population movements related to gold mining and displacement from conflict.

As of Thursday, 6 out of 26 of Congo’s provinces have been impacted. About 90 per cent of all cases and 80 per cent of deaths are concentrated in Ituri province, the WHO said Wednesday.

The real scope of the outbreak remains unknown. It was declared on 15 May, but the global health body now says sequencing showed it began months earlier, in February.

There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current outbreak.

Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri, the most affected of the five provinces in Congo where cases have been reported.