South-Ubangi reports Ebola case as DRC outbreak spreads

Ebola has been detected in a man in South-Ubangi, a northwestern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo bordering the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville, local authorities said on Friday. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of the DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, confirmed the positive test for the Bundibugyo virus.

South-Ubangi is the seventh DRC province where the virus has been detected during the current outbreak. It has not yet been added to the provinces officially affected by the epidemic because local transmission has not been confirmed there.

What officials know about the case

The sample came from a patient in the Bulu health district and was analysed by the national research institute. The patient, who later died, developed symptoms in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo province, after travelling through Rwanda, Uganda and Ituri province in northeastern DRC, according to acting South-Ubangi governor Jean-Rene Galekwa Vundawe. Read the context: Unpaid Ebola health workers walk out in DR Congo’s Ituri province.

The patient then travelled by boat on the Congo River. Galekwa said 38 people identified as contacts had been placed in quarantine. He warned that the patient’s movements and the boat route exposed populations in North-Ubangi, Tshopo and Mongala provinces.

The outbreak’s scale

The Bundibugyo virus had previously been detected in six provinces in eastern and northeastern DRC. The current outbreak is the country’s 17th and has recorded 6,942 cases and 3,349 deaths as of Wednesday, according to the latest government figures.

Those deaths exceed the 2,299 recorded during DRC’s 2018–2020 Zaire Ebola outbreak. The World Health Organization has said the outbreak remains out of control and could surpass the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak, which killed more than 11,325 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Why response efforts are difficult

Recent cases and deaths have declined in Ituri, the outbreak’s epicentre, but risen sharply in neighbouring North Kivu and Upper-Uele. The response has been hindered by weak health infrastructure, remote locations and ongoing conflict near DRC’s borders with South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda.

The Bundibugyo variant has no approved vaccines or treatments. Several vaccines and treatments are being tested, while the outbreak has continued to spread since it was officially declared on May 15.