The risk from the deadly Ebola outbreak has been raised to the highest level for the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization said Friday, as the toll continued to rise.
There are now 82 confirmed cases and seven confirmed deaths in the DRC, with almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, the WHO said.
The outbreak, which experts suspect was circulating under the radar for some time, was caused by the less common Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments.
The WHO is prioritising certain existing treatments to see how effective they might be in combating the strain.
Uganda situation ‘stable’
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation was “especially challenging” as health workers scramble to catch up with the spread of the virus and track down contacts of everyone thought to be infected, in highly insecure areas.
“We know the epidemic in DRC is much larger” than the confirmed cases, he told journalists at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
