The WHO says the runaway outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is likely to overtake the deadliest outbreak of the disease ever – a decade ago, reports the BBC.
The agency’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the 2026 outbreak, “at its current pace”, would “eclipse” that of the 2014-2016 occurrence, which killed at least 11 000 people.
At least 4 300 cases have been recorded so far, with more than 2 000 deaths.
The WHO said last week that it hoped to reverse the spread of the disease within three months but warned that this meant bringing transmission under control, not ending the outbreak entirely.
Although the epidemic was only officially declared in May, it is believed the outbreak began at least three months before then, health officials said.
“We are chasing the virus, the virus is ahead of us,” WHO Africa director Dr Mohamed Janabi said at a news conference in the city of Bunia, near the centre of the outbreak.
He cited research showing that the virus started spreading in February and was initially misdiagnosed as malaria or typhoid.
The 2026 outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo species, which has previously caused only two known outbreaks – in 2007 and 2012.
Britain’s medicines regulator, the MHRA, has given permission for the first human trials of a vaccine for Bundibugyo to go ahead.
The jab is being created by a team from the University of Oxford based on the same technology used in the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. Three other groups are also developing different vaccines for Bundibugyo although they have not yet entered clinical trials.
The WHO is also sponsoring a separate clinical trial in the DRC to see whether two existing antiviral therapies can improve survival rates.
BBC article – Ebola outbreak on track to be deadliest ever, WHO chief says (Open access)
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