ADDIS ABABA, May 24 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has called for accelerated response and preparedness measures in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and 10 other high-risk countries to rapidly contain the ongoing Ebola outbreak.
Addressing an online press briefing on Saturday evening, Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya said a total of 745 cases, including both suspected and confirmed infections, and 176 probable deaths have been reported since the DRC declared its 17th outbreak on May 15.
"We have two affected countries and 10 countries at high risk. All other African countries, because they are not bordering the two affected countries, we are not calling them at risk for now, but depending on the way the outbreak is moving, we can reconsider this," Kaseya said.
The official highlighted major operational challenges, including a four-week detection gap of silent transmission before official confirmation, a lack of available medical countermeasures, high population mobility, weak health infrastructure, insecurity and limited access, as well as misinformation and mistrust.
"In terms of detection, there is a strong recommendation to increase the diagnostic capacity," he said. "We are talking about a region where we have high mobility and insecurity. The combination of these two is what we are experiencing today with the spread of this outbreak beyond what we are expecting."
He further noted challenges with medical countermeasures, saying the outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo strain, for which no strain-specific vaccine is currently available.
According to Kaseya, the African continent currently needs about 319 million U.S. dollars to respond to the outbreak, of which 265 million dollars is to support response efforts in the DRC and Uganda, while 54 million dollars is to build preparedness across the 10 high-risk countries.
He stressed that the Africa CDC is considering activating a holistic way to respond to the outbreak by "putting in place one team, one plan, one budget, and one implementation model" under the continental incident management support team.
Expressing concern over a higher risk of regional spread, he said the latest outbreak, initially reported in Ituri Province in eastern DRC, now constitutes a public health emergency of continental security.
The Ebola virus is highly contagious and can cause symptoms including fever, vomiting, diarrhea, generalized pain or malaise, and, in severe cases, internal and external bleeding. According to the World Health Organization, Ebola fatality rates vary, depending on the viral subtype. ■