Photo courtesy of Anadolu
The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had exceeded the capacity of the current response.
WHO official Vasee Moorthy said urgent funding, personnel and equipment were needed to expand treatment services and contain further transmission.
He said authorities must deploy more field investigators, safe burial teams and community health workers to areas where infections were spreading or likely to emerge.
As of Aug. 1, the outbreak had reached 3,748 confirmed cases and 1,657 deaths, with 708 recoveries recorded.
Cases were reported in 49 health zones across five provinces, while about 17,000 contacts were under monitoring.
More than 80 percent of those contacts were being followed up daily as health teams worked to detect infections and prevent wider community transmission.
Moorthy said no treatment, vaccine or preventive medicine had yet been proven safe and effective specifically against Bundibugyo Ebola, although early supportive care could improve survival.
Clinical trials of experimental treatments and a possible post-exposure medicine were underway in Congo, while two candidate vaccines had entered early-stage trials in the United Kingdom and Canada.